


Loverboy

by Cruciferous_Jex



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Entrapdak, F/M, Hordak - Freeform, entrapta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-11-26 10:11:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20928518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cruciferous_Jex/pseuds/Cruciferous_Jex
Summary: After defecting for love and stranding the Horde Fleet, Hordak has been captured by Prime. Entrapta's whereabouts are unknown. Can Hordak hold off his captors long enough to survive? Takes place after S3 (divergent.) NSFW. NOT a Catdak fic, don't let the beginning fool you.





	1. the dark wine

Hordak awoke to the sound of the door sliding open, to a cold shaft of light hitting his face. He coughed, spraying speckles of black blood over his lips and chin. Instinctively he tried to move his arms to defend himself from whatever was coming through that door, but gasped and jerked when the sharpened steel wire they'd threaded through the ulnar void in his forearms sliced him for the umpteenth time. He could move his arms six inches at most. The wounds in the void were deep and likely infected. An infection in the ulnar void was dangerous to his people. It could kill him very quickly if allowed to spread. 

That was, perhaps, why the Hordok that entered the room took hold of his wrists. His touch was gentle in a way that disturbed Hordak greatly - freakishly soft, almost human. The Hordok put a calming fingertip on Hordak's forearm. 

"Hold. Here," he said, struggling with speech. He took a bottle of foam disinfectant from his little chore case. "Discomfort. "

Hordak hissed when the foam hit him, burning, the sting slicing all the way up his arms into his brain. His legs jerked ineffectually. They'd secured his back to the wall via each of his dorsal ports, immobilizing him. 

"Discomfort," the Hordok repeated. 

"Yes," Hordak gasped. "Listen - listen to me."

The Hordok looked up at Hordak with green glowing eyes.

"Yes. Yes, good, listen. Bring me - bring me a Hordak."

The Hordok blinked and tilted his head at the request as he tended to Hordak's other wounds - cuts, puntures, bruises, electricity burns. And scratches.

So many scratches. 

"A. Hordak?" he finally managed.

"Yes, any low-ranking Hordak. Please, you must. Quickly."

The Hordok's brow furrowed as he desperately tried to make sense of the request. Hordak himself was not sure what he would do with a Hordak should he succeed in getting one, only that he felt he might - somehow, in some way - have pull with a member of his clone line. That he might be able to work on rank or elder respect to get one to help him escape this cell. Provided, of course, Prime had not finally edited out of the Hordak line their small scrap of his own curiosity and rebelliousness. 

He'd had no luck with these Hordoks, a line entirely new to him. These creepishly docile green-eyed servants were so different than Prime that they barely deserved the term clone. 

"Young. Hordak," it repeated, studying him, struggling with sentience in a way that made Hordak want to scream. What sick perversion had Prime's cloning program turned to, to purposely create such an abomination, forever struggling to comprehend. He could see the struggle in the Hordok's eyes, a hungry curiosity but no capacity. 

"Yes, you demonic thing," Hordak whispered. This would not get anywhere. The Hordok knew Hordak was a prisoner. He was commanded to do chores and disregard anything said. Yet he listened intently. 

"I wouldn't bother trying to sweet talk those things," a young female voice said. "They're WAY too stupid to help you."

Catra stepped in front of the door, silhouetted in the harsh light. She grinned at Hordak, her hand resting on her whip. A red extending shock club hung from her belt. 

Hordak shut his eyes and sighed. 

"Not even gonna welcome me back? Rude."

A second Hordok entered the room carrying a large multi-level food canister, a metal candlestick, and a large cushion under on arm. 

"Put those here," Catra barked, pointing to a section of floor directly across from Hordak. He glanced from them to her and back again. She smirked. 

"They're smarter than you think," Hordak said. The nurse Hordok looked directly at him. 

"Whatever, they're pretty damn dumb," Catra said, and flopped down on the cushion. She snapped at a Hordok and pointed to the candle. "Light it. Then get out." 

The Hordok bent down to light the candle. 

"What's the meaning of this?" he asked, jerking his chin towards it. "Torture didn't work so you're going to woo me?"

Catra smiled in a way he had learned not to like, with a little scrunch of the eyebrows that indicated pleasure. "Oh, Hordey Baby, am I ever. Leave the light off," she commanded the exiting Hordok. The door shut behind him, leaving Catra and Hordak in the dark room with the flickering candle. 

Hordak held his breath, feeling a trickle of fear. Her past interrogations for Prime had been violent and agonizing but were nevertheless standard fare. This was a departure he did not like.

"Force - Force Captain?" he'd stammered two days ago. The first time she walked smirking into his cell, he was still recovering from capture and unsure if he was simply imagining her. "I thought I threw you out an airlock."

She grinned and shrugged. "Nine lives, I guess. In any case I'm not your Force Captain anymore. I can't believe I ever served under anyone as pathetic as you. You're, like, a skin shaving compared to him. A sick little hangnail."

"Ah," Hordak said. No doubt Prime had rescued her somehow, and Catra had sold him her world in return. "I see. You're working for Prime now."

"Yes, genius, I'm working for Prime now. How do you think we found you?"

He took a good look at her. She had a fine new uniform, black and shiny. There were jeweled coils and in her wild hair - not regulation, but Prime apparently made an exception for her. A glowing medal was pinned to her chest.

"He even gave you an Imperial Regalia. He must be most pleased with you."

"Prime thought you'd vanished off the face of Etheria until I woke up. I figured out where you were then planned and executed your successful capture," Catra said, her chest puffed. She smiled primly. "He is VERY pleased with me."

"He was very pleased with me once."

"Yeah, until you started rotting like an old shoe. And you smell like one too, phew." She waved her hand in front of her face in an exaggerated way, like a bullying child. 

"Is this why you've come here? To waste my time with childish taunts?"

"No," she said, putting her hand on the bejeweled shock baton at her waist. "I'm here to get some answers out of you."

Hordak laughed. "They sent you? They can't be serious. You're not even -"

She took three steps over to him, tore open his tunic with her claws, shoved the end of the shock baton into one of his ports, and fired. 

His scream was that of an animal. 

"They're serious," she said, shoving the baton in another port. He howled. "I'M serious! I worked so hard for you and you NEVER took me seriously!" She flipped the baton in her hand and struck him across the face with it once, twice, sending teeth and black blood across the floor. "Yeah? Well look at you NOW!" she cried, then wound up and stomped him in the ribs with her heel. Hordak made sound like a dying dog and heaved. "That was for the airlock. Now where's the SWORD, Hordak?"

And so it went. The following forty eight hours had been an parade of agonies at her hand, continuing long after he'd stopped doubting her cruelty or stamina. He didn't know why it should suprise him. She was Shadow Weaver's creature, after all.

Nevertheless he did not break. Catra only left when she needed sleep, when she was too hungry and exhausted to function. 

But now she had returned, with food and bedding. 

She grinned at him, her fangs gleaming in the candlelight. 

He glanced at the cushion she lay upon.

"Planning on sleeping here?" he asked.

She grinned wider and leaned towards him. "I don't know WHAT'S gonna happen on our little adventure tonight. But I know I'm ready to party."

Hordak peered at her. 

"Are you ready to party, Hordak? Huh? Do you like partying? Do you like girls?" She leapt off the cushion to her feet. She spun and started doing some sort of wiggling dance for him that involved her hips, lewd and pretty.

"Force Captain, have you lost your mind?" he hissed.

She laughed.

"Not at all. The question is, do you like my dancing?" she asked over her shoulder, wiggling her behind and batting her eyelashes.

"No."

"Rude! But funny you should say that," she said. As part of her dance she took her shock club off her belt and extended it. Hordak flinched, but she merely used it to lift his chin. She braced her arm on the wall over his head and leaned down, her face close to his. "Because I was recently informed you respond to that kind of thing," she whispered. 

"Not THAT kind of thing," he whispered back.

"Oh what? I'm not a smoke show like Entrapta?"

Hordak's eyes widened with dread. Catra grinned.

"Yeah. We found your cozy little nest last night, loverboy."

He shut his eyes.

"We found lots of interesting stuff there too! But most notably, one bed." Catra brought her hand to her mouth and gasped, then chuckled. "I was like, wow. I thought she was just another piece of lab equipment to you! I mean the whole Horde was speculating when Entrapta didn't leave the sanctum for months, but I always said nah. Not Hordak. Never." She chuckled. "Honestly I'm kind of impressed, I didn't think you had it in you. But it turns out you do. And that is just...so interesting to me."

"You pathetic backwater lifeforms and your consant obsession with mating," he hissed. "Go find another Hordak to sate your putrid curiosity. I have nothing for you."

"What you have for me is the location of the sword."

"I do not have that for you either." 

The irony of this, Hordak thought as he looked up at Catra's frustrated expression, was that he really didn't know the location of the sword. He had no idea where it was. From what he could gather via Catra's line of questioning it was not with Adora, which came as a surprise to him, but it was not with himself and Entrapta either. It never had been. Due to Entrapta's brilliance they hadn't needed it.

Catra charged up the shock club.

Hordak sighed tiredly. 

"If you must," he said.

This threw her. She stopped charging the club and looked at him. After a moment she turned on her heel, went back to the cushion, and flopped down upon it. She rolled into a seductive pose, smiling at him.

"No, you're right. This isn't a night for violence. This is a night for romance." She grinned. "Forget the sword. Let's talk about Entrapta." 

Hordak held his breath. Where was she? Had they captured her? Was she alive?

"Let's not," Hordak said, forcing his tone into impassivity. 

"Aw, boo. I'll make it fun. I have all your favorite stuff in here," she said, hauling the expensive travel bag onto her lap. "You know I gotta say, your civilian population makes really nice things. This bag, my new boots, these hair thingies?" She tapped one. It jingled pleasingly. "I've never looked this good."

"My people are wealthy beyond imagining from Prime's conquests. I'm sure he is setting you up nicely."

"Oh he is. He even took me on a quick trip to a ball on your homeworld. The actual members of your species really know how to party. I mean it was WILD. Too bad you'll never see it, they'd never let a clone in." Catra snickered. "You know I'm glad Adora destroyed that portal? I was ready to die with all of you, and now look at me. Force Captain of an intergalactic fleet. My star keeps rising." She took something out of the bag and popped it in her mouth. "Shame about yours though. Cherry tomato?"

Hordak's mouth twisted. 

"Oh come on, you love these. I made a whole care package for you, don't be such a twat. Look, I've got the tomatoes, some dark wine, red egg tarts, black coffee that's two thirds sugar the way you like. And whatever these are, these - pickled coins? I don't know. I even roasted your dumb ass a reed pheasant. I mean, a Hordok roasted it, but you get the idea."

She set a large cylindrical bejeweled canteen down at her feet and pressed a button on the top, then clapped her hands in delight when four or five shelves full of food opened for display. It smelled incredible. He realized he was ravenously hungry. He could go weeks without eating and by this point had, as any food he'd come across on Beast Island went directly to Entrapta. 

He turned his face away. "Poison."

"Nope. It's not time for you to die yet. That'll come, Prime won't let you waste his air forever. I mean...face it, we're GONNA find the sword eventually, with or without you. We're gonna figure out what the First Ones tech in your nest does too. But in the meantime let's be friends, ok? We've known each other a long time. We should be more comfortable together."

With that she rolled grinning off the cushion and crawled towards him. He instinctively tried to back away but there was nowhere to go.

"Don't be scared. I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm just gonna sit right here-" Hordak gasped as Catra settled herself down in his lap with a little purr. She did not weigh much but the pressure on his internal injuries hurt, especially when she reached over to the food canister. "-and feed you these little tomatoes, and you're gonna tell me everything about you and Entrapta, okay loverboy? What you were doing all those months on Beast Island, what she knew about the tech you had," Catra leaned in close to his face. "What color panties she wore."

A rage he thought he was too exhausted to feel tore through him. He snarled and jerked, trying to knock Catra off of him, cutting his ulnar void further in the process. It did not work. Catra balanced primly on his hips with a smile. 

"Purple I bet?" She touched her fingertip to his nose as he struggled against his bonds. "Boop."

He snapped at her finger and hissed in her face. She reared back and slapped him, her claws leaving three straight black cuts on his cheek.

"Knock it off," she scolded. "Or we can go back to shock batons in your ports." 

"Fuck you," Hordak snarled. 

Catra's eyes widened. "Wow, language, cadet. Sheesh. Eat, you're not yourself when you're hungry." She took him by the chin shoved a tomato in his mouth. He spat it out. She watched it fly across the room.

"Ok fine, not hungry? Fine. We'll just ... settle in." She curled up in his lap, snuggled back against his chest, just out of reach of his snarls and gnashing teeth.

"Catra," he growled. "Get off me. Get off me NOW!"

Catra placed a finger to her lips. "Shhh. No need to get in a tizzy."

He continued to struggle but it was over. Whatever fight he had in him left upon hearing those words. It was all he could do not to let the despair overtake him. His head drooped.

He was tired.

They stayed silent like that for a long while, listening to the hum of the ship's life support system. Catra neither spoke nor moved. He hated that her warm weight and soft purring gradually became soothing. His heart slowed down. He relaxed.

"There, see?" she whispered after a long while. "This can be nice. Friendly. We'll just have a little chat about you and Entrapta."

Hordak rolled his eyes. "What possible strategic value is there in that information for you?"

"Maybe some, maybe none. How will I know unless I hear it?" 

Hordak smirked. "Ah. You're out of leads. You're desperate. "

He felt her body tense. Her tail swished. He'd angered her. But she caught herself and relaxed. She settled back against him and rested her face in the crook of his neck. Scratched affectionately at his chest. 

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Hordak found himself thrown by this sudden return to decorum. "G-granted," he said before the absurdity could hit him. 

"Look at it this way," she said softly. "We both know you're gonna die here. Prime wants to know where the sword is, but even if you gave that up right now he'd still punish you for stranding his fleet. So you have nothing to lose. You may as well tell someone your story. Shouldn't someone know?"

"I prefer it weren't you."

"I'm all you've got."

Hordak's eyes shut. His brow furrowed. He would have to ride this out, he realized. There was no other viable option. Perhaps, just maybe, the longer he kept Catra occupied, the longer Entrapta had to plan. 

Provided they had not captured her and the machine. Provided she was alive at all.

No, he could not think that way. He needed resolve.

And maybe something else. 

He jerked his chin towards the food canister.

"Give me -" he hesitated, "Give me the dark wine."


	2. every face and voice his own

She smiled and retrieved a bottle from the central compartment of the canister. She opened it with her claw, took a big, long swig out of the bottle and winced, wiping her puckered mouth.

"See? Not poison. Bottoms up," she said, and held it to his lips. The sour, tannic brew was the first thing besides blood he'd tasted in weeks. He only intended a sip but his starved body overrode him and he took in three good gulps - a little less than half the bottle - before forcing himself away.

"More?" 

"No," he choked.

She wiped the mouth of the bottle and took a swig herself. Legitimately not poison, it seemed. Unless she'd already had the antidote. But what good was such paranoia now? 

Catra put the bottle down and looked up at him expectantly. 

"Well? What do you want to know?" Hordak said. "I don't have all day."

"So," Catra said, as though they were friends chatting over coffee. "Entrapta. What's her deal?"

Hordak frowned. "Entrapta's ... 'deal' is...."

The words would not come. 

"Entrapta's deal is...?"

"She is....extremely...competent."

Catra gave a snorting laugh. "Hot." She took reached for a cherry tomato and popped it in her mouth. "Seriously though. "

Hordak looked away. "We spent a lot of time together. In...in orbit around one another. And that orbit started to..." he furrowed his brow and shrugged his shoulders, "decay."

Catra blinked. "Sorry?"

Hodak gave Catra a withering look. "If you're going to serve aboard a star ship you should at least know the basics, Force Captain. A decaying orbit is when two objects are destined to-"

"Look, save the physics lessons. Just explain what you mean."

"I am."

"In Etherian, nerd."

Hordak snarled at her. The words would not come. He'd become so used to thinking of his relationship to Entrapta in terms of orbits he was at a loss how to explain it otherwise. 

"I became...stuck in a gravitational well that she generates. But not by mass or tech, by...by her being. Her existence. She ...."

"Provides ... water?"

"No! A gravity well. Read a book, rodent."

"You're being a nerd again," Catra said warningly, her claws playing at his thigh. 

Hordak groaned in frustration. What was it between him and Entrapta if not a freak occurance of terrestrial gravity? He didn't even know when it had started. Perhaps it was because Entrapta, with her ever mobile hair with the tensile strength of steel, was not bound to any firm spatial coordinates. Everyone else tended to stay in one place, usually stock straight in front of him, eyes averted. But not Entrapta. Sometimes she was floating far above him, sometimes upside down at eye level, sometimes spiralling from workbench to tool kit to computer console. Perhaps that was why he began looking at her more than he looked at anything else, otherwise how was he to know where she was? 

It would take such an anomaly in perspective, he supposed, for her to say what she'd said to him, to see what she saw in him, the day she gave him his new armor. That she could look at his crumbling, his incompetence, and name it was it was: imperfection; and something else: beautiful.

At least to her.

If he orbited her, the name of the ship he piloted was Horde Fleet Cruiser: Imperfection is Beautiful. There was no more transgressive a sin to utter. Reality made a permanent move three inches to the left as soon as he heard it. Entrapta's gravity became inescapable. 

But he didn't tell Catra that. He would never allow her posession of that. Instead he invoked a simple metaphor about ships, something even she could understand. 

"Total engine failure," he muttered to Catra, his voice going slow with dark wine. 

"What?"

"The controls were locked out."

"The controls on the ship?"

"Yes."

"The ship that is you."

"Precisely."

The corner of Catra's mouth turned up in a snicker. "Amazing how you crashed right between her legs."

Hordak snarled and hissed. 

"Oh did I ruin the mood? Sorry. Here, have more wine." She picked up the bottle, the slight roll in her weight sending a sharp ache through his abdomen. "You could probably use it."

She held the bottle up for him to drink, at an angle steep enough to send the rest of it down his throat in a torrent. It left him gasping.

"Wow, Hordak," Catra said, shaking the empty bottle. "Get fucked UP. You're more like your civilians than I thought."

"No," he choked. "Really not in the least."

Catra nodded. "True. They think of you guys as like...literal garbage. If Prime would let them they'd hunt you for sport."

"They'd do worse than that."

"They were super harsh about it at that ball," Catra chuckled. She examined her claws. 

"It is Prime who...truly loves us."

"Heh. You don't sound so sure of that." 

Hordak didn't reply.

"Did I tell you Prime offered me a clone? It was bizarre. Like here's the chip to your cabin, here's a private scout ship, oh and you may take this Hordak as a companion if you wish! And this Hordak in a really slinky black number walks up, and -"

"Never accept a Companion. They're spies."

"Duh. I didn't say yes. It was weird."

"Prime will keep trying. He will find other ways."

"Other ways to demonstrate what garbage clones are. On Etheria we thought you were a god. Turns out you're just trash that refused to be thrown away." Catra yawned, sending her arms up and over her head. One hand landed in Hordak's hair and began to scratch. "Prime ever put you on Companion duty, loverboy?"

"No. They are specially trained."

"Aww. Too bad. But I guess you got there eventually, huh?"

Hordak shut his eyes. The scratching felt good. It was something Entrapta did. 

"Oh, you like that," Catra said softly.

Hordak's eyes flew open. He snarled and jerked his head away. 

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Catra tutted. She reached back dramatically for the food canister, the offending hand arcing through the air into the sliced reed pheasant. Hordak groaned with the roll in her weight. "I have a question for you. Who told you I sent Entrapta to Beast Island? I didn't get to ask before you threw me out the airlock."

"Force Captain Scorpia," Hordak said. 

"FOrCe CApTaIN ScOrpIA," Catra said, mocking his formality. "Ugh! I knew it."

"Tell me, does she live?"

"Pff," Catra said, taking a bite of pheasant. "Like I care about a deserter?"

Hordak's eyebrow raised. "Oh? When did she go AWOL?"

"I don't know, it was when I was in the tissue stabilizer. Records have her on a supply transport to Etheria and that's it. She never came back. " 

Hordak smirked. "Smart woman."

"Are you kidding? She knows Prime is gonna glass the planet. Dumb plan if you ask me."

"She didn't ask you," he muttered. 

"What's THAT supposed to mean?" Catra balked, pressing her foot into Hordak's stomach. He heaved in pain. 

"Stop...that," he said through grit teeth.

"Tell me!"

"Meaning," Hordak gasped as she released her foot, "I got an earful about the two of you along with the information about your betrayal."

"Oh REALLY?" Catra said, sitting up. "Scorpia's talking shit, huh? THIS should be good. Let me guess, she's the world's most innocent victim? Catra is so mean?"

"Essentially." 

"Ugh! She is SO pathetic."

"Scorpia is far too good for you. I hold her entire family in high esteem. Always loyal to me. Not like you. Scorpia should have taken her stinger to your heart years ago." 

"Yeah, a lot of people should have done me in when they had the chance. Big deal. What's Scorpia to you all of a sudden?"

Shortly after Prime's fleet showed up in orbit around Etheria and his brother accepted him back with open arms, Hordak fell ill. 

It was not a physical illness, at least not from what he could detect. The bioscanners found nothing to explain the exhaustion, the sudden loss of purpose when he'd finally achieved everything he'd wanted for decades. He found himself shuffling around the wrecked sanctum early in the morning when he usually slept. He meant to take stock of the damage and begin repairs, but inevitably ended up sat on a stool just ... staring. 

Staring at the remains. 

How could she have done it?

HAD she done it?

But if she hadn't...where was she? No force he knew of could stop Entrapta. She would be here by his side if she ... if she wanted to be. 

So she must have wanted to be somewhere else. Bright Moon, most likely, with the rest of her kind. He should never have been so foolish as to believe...

...what? 

He could not let himself even attempt to define it. It made his illness worse, to the point that he could find himself inmobile if he sank too far into it. She had made her choice, and he had much to do. Far more than he felt he could summon the energy for, but now was not the time to show weakness. Prime had given him a second chance despite his degenerative condition, an absolute first in the history of the Brotherhood. Hordak knew could never show weakness again. And that was simply the way of things.

The reunion had been everything Hordak wanted. He'd laid Etheria and her First Ones tech at Prime's feet like supplication before a god. He'd planned to ask to be reinstated into the Horde - not even as a General, merely to be accepted back into the Brotherhood- but he hadn't needed to. Prime was astonished- astonished - by Hordak's ingenuity and determination. By his loyalty. That in his weakened state, with nearly no resources at his disposal, he conducted a decades long ground war and established a firm foothold on an alien world. Hordak's adaptability and inventiveness spoke well of Prime, Prime had said. It spoke well of the Brotherhood.

He was proud of him.

Prime did not mention the defect, or the suddenness and cruelty with which he'd sent Hordak to the front lines. Hordak did not dare bring it up, but would not let himself be lured into the illusion that it was water under the bridge. Hordak knew he was being watched. He knew Prime regarded him with suspicion. They were waiting for any crack to show, he was certain of it. 

The cracks were certainly there. It was often difficult to keep his composure on the flagship. It was home, just as he remembered it. He'd expected that familiarity to feel ... well, good. It should be a good thing, to be back home. Hordak had spent his life in the constant company of his Brothers. He'd rarely been alone, much less lonely, much less how horrendously lonely he'd at times been on Etheria. He felt the lack of family keenly, missed their voices and scent. 

He'd never - never before, anyway - truly taken an Etherian into his confidence. One could not truly befriend those one meant to rule. His Horde underlings could never be his Brothers. Hordak knew that in the Fright Zone the knife was at all times only inches away. He knew better than to underestimate the people of Etheria.

At least he thought he did. 

His face darkened. 

She had fooled him utterly.

Her dedication to the ruse was admirable, a long game played without a hint of guile or lust for power. She'd manipulated him so smoothly, so masterfully that even now at this height, even knowing of her betrayal, he missed her. He missed her more than he was happy to be home. He missed her more than he felt hunger or fatigue, as he could neither eat nor sleep since she vanished. All he could feel was her absence. He hated her for this. 

No.

No, he could not think of her, could not be swept up in anxious hungry longing for her voice and scent, not with all these eyes on him here on the flagship's atrium level. Not in this large, dark, echoing cavelike plaza full of red glowing eyes. He began to listen - actually listen - to the conversations happening around him. The same five or six conversations had over and over by thousands of individuals who were actually the same individual. Conversations he himself had had, exchanges he knew by heart, though the subject matter was different it was somehow still the same five conversations in a sea of unerring and permanent sameness, every face and voice his own. 

These reflections stared at him wherever he went. All eyes on Hordak the genetic castaway, now famous throughout the Brotherhood for what he built from his shipwreck. Famous for his determination and loyalty to the Brotherhood, which he possessed in such remarkable amounts that Prime himself reached back into the chasm into which he tossed defective clones and plucked him out again. He was a walking fairytale to them. A beacon of hope. But all Hordak could feel was a suffocating paranoia. 

He grew dizzy. Stopped walking.

His Brothers stopped to stare at him stopping. He nearly put his hand to his head to steady his dizziness as he might alone and unobserved on Etheria, but here would be a devastating show of weakness.

"Are you all right, Brother?" the General accompanying him asked. 

Hordak held his breath. Eyes on him, so many eyes.

"Yes. It is ... good to be home," Hordak said. He turned to the small crowd. "Must there be so damned many of you fuck-ugly bats?"

It was a very old joke, one of the oldest in the Brotherhood. It originated from the very first battle Prime fought with clone soldiers. It was what the defeated planet's ruler said to Prime just before he was killed. In victory the clones had taken it and made it their own.

The joke put the assembled Hordaks at ease. They laughed and gave brief respectful bows before moving on. Hordak was able to breathe again. He'd left the flagship as soon as he could. And had come here to this home, his home, the Fright Zone, a place of all different voices and unique faces, to sit in his wrecked sanctum and think obsessively on one particularly unique voice and face. 

"Stop wasting time," he muttered to himself. "You must be on your way."

Prime had requested Hordak's presence on the bridge of the flagship in three hours for the test of a new weapon. He needed to prepare. 

And yet. 

He looked down at the console, at the ruined keyboard. She'd sat at this station. She'd pressed these buttons, used these little tools. She smiled up at him from this seat, a twinkling in her dark red eyes, her purple hair always flowing, moving. Always happy, always fascinated. He'd grown so used to her. Whenever he left the sanctum she was all he thought about until he returned to her.

He missed the smell of her.

Hordak sighed, then snarled and smacked the keyboard off the table. It skidded across the floor into a bulkhead. 

"Idiot," he muttered to himself. 

"Lord Hordak?" came a voice from the door. He turned. He hadn't even heard anyone come in. 

"Get out, Scorpia."

"I - I'll definitely get out in just a tiny sec, sir. I have your brief from Horde Prime." She held up an info pad. "Right, uh - he said right into your hand, sir."

"Thank you," he muttered, but he did not rise to retrieve it.

"Want me to just...bring it over to you, sir? That's ok, don't get up. I'll just...get around this wreckage here... I'll uh - oop!" There was a crash. "That's just me, sir, it's ok, there's just, uh, a lot of debris. Just step over this, and - and that-"

Normally he would have yelled at her, but he did not have the energy. He merely watched Scorpia struggle her way over to him through the shrapnel of his life.

"No," he muttered. "Not my life."

"Sorry sir?" Scorpia asked, panting slightly. 

"Nothing." He took the pad from her and set it on the table without looking at it. "Thank you. You are dismissed."

She did not move. Peered at him for a long moment, tilting her head.

"Something else?" he asked.

She startled. "No! Right. I'm going. I'll just...go back over all of that wreckage. Okay. Going now. Here I-"

"Do you need me to carry you, Force Captain!?" he snapped.

"Now see THAT sounds more like you!"

Hordak straightened. "What?"

Scorpia froze. "I - I'm sorry sir, I'll go. Right away."

"You will stay," he said, "and you will explain yourself, Force Captain Scorpia. "

"I -" She paused. Bit her lip. "Permission to speak ... freely? Sir?"

Hordak nodded. 

Scorpia caught her breath. "It's just that - it seems that you - haven't been, uh...quite... you're just a teensy bit not like ... your usual self, sir, since the portal was...um..." she gestured to the wreckage. "Sir."

Hordak grumbled something under his breath. So he was transparent after all. 

"Like um...like that, sir. You'd usually be threatening my life right now. Probably before now. Are you ... feeling okay?"

"I do not have 'feelings', Force Captain."

"No no no, of course not! You. Feelings? Never. Heh! But uh...we're about to win this war. And you seem like you're...not that into it."

He sighed. "What I am and am not 'into' it is none of your concern."

"Oh. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. Of course. I'll go. Sir." She took a few loud steps before she tuned to speak. "I'm just saying I understand, I would want her here too, if I were you."

Hordak took a sharp breath and turned away from her.

"You are ... presumptuous...in the extreme," he whispered, but there was no fire in his objection. His shoulders sagged.

Scorpia came closer. "I know she was important to ... " she paused, considering her words carefully "...to the effort. I know how everything can feel kinda empty when you uh ... lose an important ... asset. Sir."

Hordak shut his eyes. "Loss of important assets are endemic to warfare. The theater progresses and one must ... move on."

"Right," Scorpia said. "And that can take time."

"How much time?" 

"Sir?"

He turned to her. 

"How much time does it take?" he repeated.

"Oh. Oh sir," Scorpia said, her voice taking on a hush. She reached for him but seemed to think better of it. " I wish...I so wish I had an answer for you. I'm not over my uh ... lost asset, myself."

Hordak raised an eyebrow. 

"A - another Force Captain, sir. We...had a falling out. It turns out she does not...value me, sir. Not as she, um ... led me to believe she did. Not as I ... came to value her."

"She mislead you?"

"I think so, sir. Maybe...maybe not intentionally. It's like...she hurts people when she doesn't know what she's doing, but she...never knows what's she's doing. So she...she hurts people. Over and over and over again." Scorpia sighed heavily. "And it hurts fresh each time. Sir."

They went silent, quietly regarding one another's pain. He did not know what to say. It seemed apparent he should say something. 

But he didn't have to. When he turned to Scorpia her expression had hardened.

"Lord Hordak. Sir, there's...something I need to tell you."


	3. no better armor

Beast Island.

Entrapta was on Beast Island. 

Catra had sent her to Beast Island. Had tazed her to near death then put her on the transport. Had done so right under his nose. Then LIED about it. And had nearly gotten AWAY with it.

But Entrapta had not betrayed him. She wouldn't - she would never! He KNEW she would never! She was Entrapta! She was HIS! And she was waiting for him! As soon as this weapons test was over he would take a private cruiser and retreive her. He just had to live through the next few hours until he could be out of Prime's sight. He had to behave as though he was not levitating three inches above the ground, his heart both screaming with victory and apoplectic with fear for her. He had to believe Entrapta, in her brilliance, would have survived Beast Island this long. It was possible. And if it was possible she, of all people, could do it.

But Catra.

Catra was going to die. Catra was going to die painfully. He would not let Entrapta stay his hand this time. He would watch the light fade from Catra's eyes himself.

He grabbed the info pad and put on his grand red Ambassadorial robes - Ambassador of the Planet Etheria, as Prime had declared him until such time as a more permanent position could be arranged. He stepped off the elevator onto the landing pad where an ambassadorial shuttle cruiser waited to take him to the flagship. 

"Right this way, Ambassador," a Hordak said, leading him to the airlock. "Have you been briefed, sir?"

Hordak blinked. The pad. He had yet to read it. "I'll be read in on the way up. Bring me a pot of coffee, soldier. And a cup of sugar."

"Right away Ambassador." The Hordak bowed, leaving Hordak in the ambassadorial cabin, subtly lit and finely appointed. He sat down in a chair that sighed as he hit it and woke up the data pad. He felt so electric and overwhelmed he could barely read the words on the screen. He looked at the data pad and forced himself to concentrate. 

Weapons test, a new weapon, instantly sterilizes all life and landmass by molecular randomizing and reorganization (large scale non-nuclear "cool" glassification), first test at 0600 that morning, test target: remote landmass known as Beast Island.

"Your coffee, Ambassador."

"My...what?" Hordak replied. He wasn't sure how the words got out, as he was certain he'd just been impaled by a shard of ice. 

"Your coffee, sir. And cup of sugar."

"Thank you, set it down," he said, his throat suddenly parched. "Why aren't we moving?" 

"Waiting for clearance, sir."

Hordak looked at the time. 0445.

""Unacceptable," Hordak said.

"Sir?"

Hordak grabbed the young soldier by the collar. "Tell them to get this ship in the air, cadet! NOW!!"

"Yes sir, right away!" the startled Hordak said. Hordak threw him down and he ran off to the cockpit. 

Hordak slowly lowered back into his seat. He wanted to scream like an animal. He wanted to tear apart this beautifully appointed ambassadorial cabin. But now was not a time to get in a tizzy. Now was the time to remain calm. 

He poured the hot coffee over the cup of sugar, let it dissolve, and took a sip. He watched the Fright Zone grow smaller and smaller below as the ship rose into the atmosphere. 

He remained silent. He drank his coffee.

He planned.

***

"Wanna see some real thick juicy code?" Entrapta had said months ago, shortly after they first began working together. She - or rather her hair - reached over his shoulder and placed a data pad directly in his line of sight. It was connected to a small First Ones crystal. 

"I am working on-"

"Nevermind that for a sec, look at this," she said. Two more tendrils took the circuit board right out of his hands. Such impudence still flabbergasted him, but it became apparent early on Entrapta would not be made to mind conduct. "Look at this code."

He sighed impatiently. Studied the readout. "What specifically are you referring to?" he asked. Entrapta often forgot he could not read First Ones code and he did not like reminding her.

"All of it! This thing is like a data switchblade, like...like an utter shit scrambler for anything with a stellar navigation system. It's tiny and cute and definitely a weapon!" She disconnected it from the display and held it up to the light, grinning. It glowed a bright transparent green, a trapezoid the approximate size of a human tooth. "I love it. It's like a little good luck charm of destruction."

She turned the crystal in her fingers and gave a happy sigh. 

"It is a fascinating discovery," he conceded drily.

"Do you like it?"

"Yes," he said, glancing down at the abducted circuit board curled in her hair.

"I knew you would. Here, you take it," she said. A strand of hair pressed the crystal into his hand and closed his fingers around it.

He blinked. "For - for what purpose?"

"Because you like it. And it's cute."

He looked down at the crystal in his palm. "I do not require 'cute' things."

"You don't have to require it, I just want you to have it." She shrugged and sailed over to a station piled high with First Ones crystals. "It made me think of you."

And she got back to work. 

"Preposterous creature," he muttered, putting the crystal aside. But for the rest of the day it called to him, bored holes in him. After a long struggle he finally picked it up and slipped it into the lining of his tunic, not because doing so made even an ounce of sense, but because she wanted it to be his.

And that was where it had stayed, until now. 

Now it was connected to the auxillary navigation server at the very back of the flagship's bridge, downloading a First Ones data corrupter into the fleet's central systems. Prime had just refused Hordak's request to move the site of the weapons test so now this was what was happening. 

"Move the test?" Prime had asked Hordak not ten minutes previous. "Why? One moment. What!?" Prime boomed into an earpiece. Nine and a half feet tall, he was the lone dark blue face in a sea of white. "No, idiot, full canister. Push it as far as as it will go. I don't CARE if -"

"Sir," Hordak said. "Sir I really must insist-"

"What!?" Prime snapped down at him. "What do you want, Ambassador?"

Hordak's breath caught in his throat. "We must move the location of the test. Beast Island is...not ideal."

"Not ideal? Didn't you say that's where you sent prisoners to die?"

"Y -yes. But there are important resources - heavy machinery and - and mining -"

Prime gave a great laugh. "Heavy machinery? Mining? You mean the equipment you cobbled together out of dirt and tin? A valiant effort considering the resources at your disposal, but no reason to delay."

"Sir-"

Prime clapped his huge hand on Hordak's shoulder, lowering his voice. "You must let go of this place, brother. Our engineers are well on their way to mastering First Ones code. A few weeks at most. We just need the sword of Etheria, and as soon as we find it we are glassing the planet. Etheria is merely a container for the tech. It need not host life. There is nothing worth preserving on the surface. "

Hordak was struck speechless. "Nothing - NOTHING worth preserving - ?"

Prime peered at his insolence then continued. "Nothing, Ambassador. Once we have secured the tech we can see about reinstating your Generalship, and getting you," he gestured to Hordak's body with a barely masked disgust, "fixed up. Starting with some better armor."

Hordak's expression darkened. "There is no better armor. Sir."

"Oh? You'll have to tell me all about it. But later!" The huge hand on his shoulder squeezed. "On to new conquests, brother." Prime touched his headset. "We're ready? About time, you useless imbeciles."

With that Prime was off across the bridge barking fresh orders into his headset. And now Hordak watched with bated breath as the good luck charm downloaded into the Horde mainframe. 

He had no idea what it might do. It might weaken the containment fields off the engines and blow them into a flurry of radioactive microshrapnel. It might recalibrate the ship's atmosphere mix into cyanide and suffocate them all. It might aim the ship at Etheria's core and take them to warp. 

It might not do anything at all.

"Glasser online," someone said. 

The bridge erupted in applause, with sprinkling of "Glory to Prime!" Their experimental weapon was awake. Download completed, Hordak swiped the crystal off the server and waited, holding his breath, his throat completely dry. He watched the crew for any indication something had malfunctioned. 

"Are you all right, Ambassador?" A Hordak lieutenant asked, eyeing him critically. "You're sweating."

Hordak quickly took ahold of himself. Straightened. Breathed. 

"I am fine," he snarled. Hordak pointed at the young Hordak's forehead. "And YOU are out of uniform on the bridge of the flagship, lieutenant. "

The young Hordak's eyes went wide. He reached up to touch his hair, which hung to the side as opposed to straight back. He gasped and ran off to fix it. 

"Sir we're losing altitude," said the navigator to Prime. 

"We're losing altitude?" Prime replied. 

"We - we also just pitched two degrees."

"What are you -" Prime said. "What? Straighten the ship out, Navigator!"

"Sir, I - I'm - it's -" the navigator gestured to his station. "It's offline!"

"We've got SIX HUNDRED redlines coming in from optics!" said another soldier.

"We're under attack?" Prime erupted. "Here!? From who?"

The displays began to light up, reporting problems from every part of the ship. Chaos erupted on the bridge. Hordak took that opportunity to quietly back out the door and get down to the scout bay as fast as his crumbling body would take him. 

It had been a long time, Hordak noted, since he had run for his life. 

***

The quickest way to the scout bay was through cadet quarters, where newborn Hordaks lived. Only the finest specimens of the Brotherhood were chosen to be raised on the flagship under Horde Prime's eye. These warm dark halls were where Hordak grew up, the first home he knew after he underwent tank removal at age ten. Where he had been raised to be top general. It had been decades since he'd seen them, much less run through them. Now they seemed cramped and surreal, made more so by his urgency.

He heard a familiar voice from one of the rooms as he ran past, one that filled him with rage. 

He backtracked.

Catra was in one of the bunkrooms surrounded by seven fascinated teenage Hordaks. She stood before one sat on a bed, holding something to his mouth. 

"No, put - put your thumb over the hole. Yeah like that." She flicked a metal lighter. "Okay now inhale. Inhale inhale inhale THERE you go -!"

The Cadet saw Hordak and startled, choking on smoke.

Catra turned.

"Lord Hordak!" she said, her face going pale. "My...uh... associates here were just giving me a tour of the flagship. Heh. We're having a... a cultural exchange between peoples."

"All you know how to do is lie," Hordak said.

Catra's eyes went wide.

He seized her by the hair and dragged her shrieking out of the room. 

"And then you tossed me out the airlock," Catra said, popping a tomato in her mouth. 

"And I would do it again."

"I'm sure you would. Too bad you're never gonna get to."

"We"ll see," Hordak said. "How did you survive?" 

"I hit the cockpit of a fighter coming in to dock. They scooped me up. I was unconscious in the tissue stabilizer for months but joke's on you, Hordak, you can't kill me. And not only did you not kill me, the entire Etherian Horde thinks I'm a living god."

He smirked. "Little do they know you're just trash that refused to be thrown away."

Catra's face fell. Her lip curled. She reared back and slapped Hordak hard across the face. 

There was a long silence. She studied him. Hordak kept his eyes averted.

"The fuck did Entrapta see in you?" Catra muttered, shaking out her hand. 

***

What Entrapta saw in him was salvation. 

Hordak tracked her, flying low over the tundra in a scout. It was a single occupant light cruiser with minimal ordinance, slick and black and triangular in appearance. The cockpit was large enough for one adult Hordak to fit comfortably. He lay mostly reclined, holographic controls at each hand. As he descended through the atmosphere he set the sensors to find anything that might lead to Entrapta -mammilian warmth, concentrations of metals, First Ones tech signatures, energy sources. If any of those existed on Beast Island that's where she would be. In a mine, quite possibly, though his sensors were not ground penetrating.

He added it to the sensor pickup the odd, impossible quark signature of Etherian magic, hoping it might ping back with a read off her hair. 

He felt a twinge as the sensors reported none of those things. No metals in any great concentration, at least not above the surface, and no power sources. No hair. He descended to twenty feet. It was night, so he could see nothing but snow gone electric white, blowing everywhere in the light of the cruiser's afterburners. 

He asked the sensors to pick up mammalian warmth in even the smallest amount. It came back with many animals, all large.

Some very large.

And ... fast. 

He tried not to let the implications of this for Entrapta discourage him. He swept low over the surface, looking for anything warm the size of a tiny brilliant woman. A tiny brilliant woman who was nonetheless quite human, and though formidable in her way, had been attempting to survive on a freezing cold island with no food and huge, fast moving animals. Quite possibly without so much as a coat, he realized, unless Catra had located some mercy in the black ice of her rotten soul before putting Entrapta on the transport. 

Hordak had a sudden vision of finding Entrapta dead, starved and black with frostbite. Or not finding her at all. Of being without her and relentlessly pursued by Prime's forces. Of piloting the cruiser far beneath the icy waters off the coast of Beast Island and opening the cockpit.

Hordak growled and punched the bulkhead. 

He kept searching. 

***

He landed the ship and stood at the entrance of a mine. It was cold - lord it was cold, even for him - and here he was calling for her like she was a lost pet. His voice echoed back to him a few times before absurdity and uselessness drove him back to the scout. He'd never find her like this, stopping at every open pit and yelling. Yet he persisted till his voice was raw.

When the sensors did pick up magic it appeared out of nowhere  
Hordak scrambled back into the cockpit and tore the ship around to pursue. Such a sudden appearance must have meant Entrapta had in fact taken shelter in a mine. Currently she was fifteen miles away. Her quark signature moved rapidly. She was running. Had to be.

He pressed the ship as fast as he could and turned on the spotlight as soon as he was in visual range. As soon as he saw her his heart leapt. Entrapta charged along a drift, her mask down to protect her face, a snow-encrusted animal hide tied to her body. 

She'd survived.

Of course she had.

She waved her hands over her head frantically at the sudden bright light in the sky, looked behind her, then started running even faster. Something was moving under the snow in pursuit of her. Something big. 

Hordak descended rapidly, opening the cockpit. 

"Shit shit shit shit SHIT!!" Entrapta chanted, charging towards him, squinting against his spotlight. "You! You in the skiff! Little help? It's -"

The creature burst out of the snow, huge and wormlike with savage jaws capable of taking her and and the scout down in one bite. Entrapta screamed. Hordak sped the scout forward, dove over the edge of the ship, and with one arm scooped her up by the waist. He dragged her on board and turned ninety degrees while hitting burn on the engines, giving the creature a face full of fire before he ascended one thousand feet, leaving it screaming on the ground. 

"H-Hordak?" Entrapta asked in disbelief from where she'd tumbled into his lap, pushing her mask up over wild, unkempt hair. Her skin was red and cracking on the cheeks and nose. There were big circles beneath her eyes, which had the gleam of a starving animal. Her eyes were moon-wide, her jaw slightly agape, as though she were unsure if she were dreaming. 

She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. 

"Entrapta -"

She took his face between her icy hands and kissed him, a cold kiss from very dry lips. She broke the kiss suddenly and looked around the cockpit. 

"Is this a spaceship!?" 

He blinked, still spinning from her kiss. "Yes."

"I'm with Hordak in a spaceship," she said carefully. "But I was just running from a giant snow worm and it was really gaining on me. Hordak can I ask you something on a purely scientific basis?"

"Y-yes?"

"Am I dead? Is this afterlife? You can tell me."

"No, you are very much alive."

A slow grin crossed her face. "I'm with HORDAK in a SPACESHIP! And not a CHEW TOY for a SNOW WORM!" she shouted victoriously, both fists in the air, then threw her arms around his neck and hugged him shockingly tight, kissing his cheek three times in rapid succession. She burst to the window, looking straight down, both hands on the glass like a child. "There she is! Oh she looks so small! HA! NOT TODAY, WORM!" She jeered, jabbing her finger at it. "NOT TODAY!" She took a breath and smiled at him, then cocked her head. "We're hovering so silently - what does the ship run on?" 

"Singularity engine," he said, trying to collect himself. He wanted to throw his arms around her but he could not make himself reach out. He wanted her to kiss him again. 

"SINGULARITY ENGINE!? Ohhh!" Entrapta held her hand to her heart and tipped to the side as though she might faint from the wonder of such a thing. "You have to tell me everything about how it works."

"Of course."

Her face suddenly contorted in pain.

"Hordak I'm so sorry," she burst. "This - this is all my fault, Beast Island, all of it. The conclusions I drew from my data were wrong," she said, wincing. "Catra is not my friend. She - "

"-has been disposed of," he said, looking Entrapta in the eye to assure her of his kill. "Never trouble yourself about her again."

Entrapta took this in silently. 

"What did you do to her?" she asked after a moment. 

"She is currently orbiting Etheria without a ship."

"Wow, you just ... threw her out into space?" Entrapta breathed. She glanced up through the cockpit as though she might see her in orbit. "What a fascinating way to die."

"Far better than she deserved." 

Entrapta nodded. "Goodbye to Catra." Her eyelids fluttered tiredly. "I'm so glad to see you. You came just in time, Mama has been after me for days." She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder, pressing her forehead to his neck. He gasped softly. 

"Who - who is Mama?" he asked, his entire body tensing with her so close. 

"The snow worm. I'm wearing her baby." She tugged at her animal hide, slick grayish white fur, and yawned. "Tried to eat it but poisonous meat. Everything to eat here is poison but the cavebirds, and they're really hard to catch. All the plants and animals. And it's just cold cold cold and wind wind wind. It's a terrible place. There's First Ones tech here for sure. Do you have any food?" She tilted her face at him. "....Hordak?"

Hordak startled. He'd hadn't been paying attention. He'd become gradually more and more enraptured by the feel of her face on his skin, her ice cold nose and warm breath, to the point that her words flowed into a song.

Entrapta gave a knowing smile. "It's good to see you too."

"Entrapta," he said. "I - "

"Armor 's looking good," she whispered. She moved the robe aside stroked his chest lovingly. "You're taking good care of it."

"Yes," he replied. "Entire maintenance protocol. Every day, to the letter. Everything just as you said."

She held her fingertips to her mouth, eyes twinkling. "Even the optionals?"

"Especially the optionals." 

She touched the crystal at his throat. "Perfect."

Her words hit his heart like sparks off one of her robots. He reached out to stroke her hair but something behind her head caught his eye. A light in the night sky. And another. Great, orange, arcing streaks of light cut through the blackness. Horde satellites, he realized, falling through the atmosphere. His eyes widened. The fleet was as good as stranded without them. 

The fleet!

The enormity of what he had just done dropped on him like a brick into a puddle of mud. He'd crippled the entire Horde fleet. By himself. Single handedly and in one fell swoop. It was an act of treason there would be no coming back from. Prime had given Hordak a second chance, had given him his - his trust - and in return Hordak had utterly incapacitated the fleet.

And he hadn't even thought twice about it. 

Entrapta looked at the sky, the cockpit reflecting her perfect face. Her hand took his and squeezed. She turned to him, her eyes wide, and his sprouting seedlings of regret were immediately quashed by the overwhelming need to protect her.

"What's happening?"

"I will explain," he said, "but first we should find somewhere safe to put the ship down."

"Screw that, there's First Ones tech here. Tons of it in the mines, I'm absolutely sure." She reached for the display but hesitated. "Does this thing have a map? We'll find the biggest mine and go there. We'd probably be able to fly the ship in if I'm right. And I'm right. Here - there there there," she said, pointing at the map Hordak called up. "That mountain. That's the only mountain on the island looks like? It's there. We'll go there."

Half starved and freezing, she was still an infectious ball of energy at the mere mention of First Ones tech. He marveled at her.

"Can we go?" she asked, clapping her hands like an excited child.

Hordak smiled. "As you wish. Settle back."

She yawned and lay back against him.

"Comfortable?" he asked softly.

"Yes," she said, pressing into him. "Very much."

He put his arm around her. He tapped the controls and they sped off into the night.


	4. the platform to the pedestal

"Oh my god, you have to try the red egg tarts," Catra said, chewing loudly. "Hordoks can COOK. I mean this is like classic Etherian cuisine and they are just NAILING it. Mmm. The pheasant is really good too. You want anything?" She jammed her thumb over her shoulder at the food canister.

Hordak scowled at her 

"No? You sure? You are missing out. Mmm." She licked her fingers. "But yeah anyway. Cool story. You're a huge hero. Tell me about the First Ones tech you found."

"The Horde has access to the volcano. What do you need from me? You have the chamber."

Catra considered this, as if trying to determine how much to reveal. "We have the remains of the chamber."

"The - remains -?"

"Yes. Something exploded before we got there. Vaporized a lot of it. All the good stuff, anyway. All that was left was like...a hole."

A ripple of horror wound it's way around Hordak's heart.

"Catra - did- did you find -"

"Entrapta? No. Doesn't mean she wasn't there, though. If she was close to the explosion there wouldn't have been anything left." She reached back to retrieve another red egg tart and took a bite. "Mmm! So good."

Hordak's heart pounded as he calculated. She couldn't have escaped in the scout, as he'd been in it when he'd been captured. Perhaps she'd realized the Horde were on Beast Island so she purged the chamber before making an escape? But where would she go? No it was likely- far more likely - that she had tried. That in desperation she made a premature attempt.

And failed. 

"Entrapta," Hordak whispered. 

"Aww, did someone blow herself up, loverboy?"

"Imploded," he muttered. "Technically. "

"Meaning?"

"Meaning everything you sought in that chamber is still there, but it is about the size of a pinhead and incredibly dense." 

Catra gave a hoot of a laugh. "Wow, do you think she's okay?"

Hordak would have hissed, but all the energy had leached from his body. He shut his eyes. He could not - would not - allow himself to believe Entrapta was dead. Not if he wanted to keep possession of his sanity. There could be many other reasons for that implosion than the one he most feared.

"You look so sad," Catra said, pouting her lip. She raked her claws through his hair and combed it back into uniform. "There you go, that's better. Now you're ready for war." She patted his head. "So, tell me. What did your fancy machine do other than kill Entrapta?"

***

They didn't know. 

Well they had an idea. But they didn't know for sure. Only suspicions. Hypotheses. It was a mystery that bordered on the divine for Entrapta, to the point that Hordak had at times felt relegated to watching, listening.

Hunting.

The first night they lowered the scout into the mountain - "An inactive volcano, called it," Entrapta said - landing at the bottom of the cone. They wrere surrounded in darkness save for the irregular circle of sky at the very top. The weather had cleared for this part of Beast Island, so a moon poked through giving them some light.

"Now we just need to find the door," Entrapta said, yawning. "Let's go."

"Rest," he said. "I will look."

"But-"

"Hush," he said, and to his surprise she did. He took off his Ambassadorial robe and lay it over her like a blanket, then opened the cockpit and climbed out. He took a portable scanner with him to attempt to locate a doorway. It was damp and rocky, a touch warmer due to depth. Melted snow dripped down around him. He could hear the skittering of insects as he scanned the walls. To his dismay he found nothing, no metal or crystal, or even a seam. He stood for a moment looking up at the moon, pushed his hair out of his face, and opened the cockpit once more.

Entrapta watched him, fighting sleep. "Nothing?"

"No," he said. "I will stay out here and continue scanning."

"No," she said. "Stay."

"You would prefer I stay with you?"

She nodded. It made no practical sense to stop now, he was not tired, but it was cold and she wanted him. He ambled into the seat. She climbed into his lap and dropped her head onto his shoulder. Her hand came to rest on his chest plate. He shut the cockpit and put his hand over hers.

"I never intended this place for you. I am sorry you had to see it. If I had known then what I know now about Force Captain Catra's lack of loyalty-"

But Entrapta was asleep, breathing softly across his neck. 

"Ah," Hordak whispered. "Very well."

He powered down the ship save for life support. He drew the robe up around her, carefully rested his cheek on the top of her head, and fell asleep as her hair wrapped softly around the two of them. An exhaustion he didn't know he felt overcame him. Her hair, he thought before dropping off, was a surprisingly warm covering.

***

Entrapta of course carried several First Ones crystals on her person. It was Hordak's idea to plug one - a benign one - into the scout's scanners to locate the doorway.

She devoured a ration pack as she watched the scanner.

"Oh," she said, pointing down. "Found the door. We're sitting on top of it."

It was a huge octagonal seam of intelligent crystal beneath a thin layer of volcanic rock that rimmed the volcano's interior. After a couple of hours' repeated attempts Entrapta managed to use the Scout's computer to send the right signal to open the door. Seventy panels opened like the iris of an eye. Beneath them a blue and purple crystal tunnel had been bored deep into Etheria. 

"Ooooh," Entrapta said as they descended, her hands on the cockpit window. "Hidden base in a dormant volcano? The First Ones were so classy."

Hordak flipped on the spotlight facing down and activated a camera on the bottom of the scout, which played on a holographic display between the hand panels. The light was anemic in the face of that darkness. Nothing but tunnel, possibly for miles. 

"Wait, wait. Stop the ship," Entrapta said suddenly. 

Hordak set the scout to hover and looked at her.

"Can we open the cockpit?"

"Going somewhere?"

"I want to see something. Can you scootch us over to the wall?"

He peered at her. "...Scootch?" 

"Like, move us - just get as as close to the wall as possible."

Hordak did as she asked, which was not far. Due to the scout's size and the octagonal shape of the tunnel there was a sizable gap between the ship and the wall. He opened the cockpit. Entrapta stretched her arms, yawned, and threw herself over the edge.

"Entrapta-!?"

The scout suddenly jerked hard. She had anchored herself to it by her hair, which had twisted and wound itself underneath the pilot's seat into the hypersteel carriage. She floated close to the wall, examining it, making little catlike noises of interest. Hordak held a hand to his chest as though to make sure his heart was still beating after seeing her jump.

"Hordak!" Entrapta chirped, "The entire tunnel is COVERED in First Ones writing!"

"NEVER do that again!" he shouted. 

She floated up to the ship, her big red eyes popping above the rim of the cockpit. "Do what?"

"Leap to your death!" 

She tilted her head in confusion.

His heart still slammed away in his chest. "I've already lost you once, seeing you casually fling yourself into a bottomless pit was something I could have done without this morning," he snapped. 

"But I wanted to see the ...." she said, gesturing to the wall. She paused. Blinked. "Oh. I scared you."

"You didn't-"

"Oh Hordak, I'm sorry I scared you." She lifted herself into the ship and put her hair on his shoulder. He finally relaxed. 

"I wasn't-" Hordak began, but what was the point in denying it? Entrapta would not punish him for this. "It is ... fine. You are a terrifying woman," he said. "Don't do that again."

"I won't, I got what I needed. You can close up if you want. " Hordak lowered the cockpit over them as Entrapta ducked down into his lap. "The whole thing is covered in First Ones writing. By far the longest document ever recovered. I've never seen anything like it."

"What do you suppose it is?" Hordak secured his arm around her as he lowered the ship into the darkness, carefully watching the holographic display for any sign of ... anything. 

"I don't know but it's biiiiiiiiig," she replied, in that low and lusty tone that she used when something had set off a spark in her. They would indeed find out what that tunnel said, Hordak realized. It had just become inevitable. 

She pecked his cheek.

He gave her a questioning glance. 

Entrapta shrugged. "I like you."

***

A system of clamps and pipes were built into the shaft floor. Hordak examined them with the cameras.

"This is for a ship," he said. "Something was meant to be launched from here."

"We're in the garage?"

"Essentially." Hordak swung the light around, revealing a transparent wall that looked into another room.

Hordak set the scout down carefully and started scanning for a door, which they found quite easily and opened without argument. Inside the room with a window onto the garage, as Entrapta put it, was a high-ceilinged crystal chamber, at the center of which was a platform that bore a pedestal with something sat upon it. The crystal walls began to glow with their presence, as though they bore a motion-detecting lighting system that hadn't booted up in centuries. Hordak and Entrapta ascended the platform to the pedestal.

"A gold box," Hordak said.

"With a crystal in it," Entrapta said. She reached out to touch it, thought better of it, and took hold of it with her hair. "Can't pick it up, it's on there. But let me see..."

She took a ring of small tools from her pocket and retrieved the jeweler's loop and tiny pen light she used for examining First Ones data, and set to work on the brilliant purple ten-sided crystal in the gold box.

"Wooow," she breathed. "Hordak I've never seen anything like this. It's... it's on a different level than any First Ones piece I've ever observed. It's got so many layers...levels... and how they intersect, I - ow! " She jerked her head away and winced. Rubbed her forehead. Bent back down to observe. "What the hell?" she whispered. 

"What is it?"

"It's like the layers are ... moving ... ow!"

She fliched back as though something had hit her eye. 

Hordak did not like that. He scanned it.

"Not radioactive," he said. 

"Is that something radiation does?"

"In extremely high amounts, yes."

"Oh. Good to know." She offered the tools to Hordak. "Wanna see?"

"Not right now. Let's have a look around."

Entrapta left the crystal with reluctance. Around the pedestal were wires and long powered-down terminals. The First Ones had been studying the crystal, or perhaps developing it. Another door led to a staircase that spiraled around the chamber, off of which were other rooms of a more personal nature. A room with an extended platform for a bed, above which hung multicolored gauze. The room after that had a tall platform in which was a deep octagonal trench with a faucet above it.

"Even a bathtub!" Entrapta breathed. "This must have been a long-term research station."

"An outpost, yes."

"But not without a soaking tub. So civilized!" She climbed into the tub to examine the faucet. "I'm getting this to work one way or another."

Hordak wandered down to the sleeping quarters. The room was crystaline and angular like the rest of the outpost, with a large platform for a bed jutting out of the wall. A platform but no mattress. That would not work. Etherians preferred something soft.

He peered at it. The crystal of the platform refracted light oddly, with a softness the walls and floor did not have. He bent down to put a hand on it and felt it give way a bit.

"Entrapta!" he called. He pressed into it. It melded to his hand, but was definitely crystalline in nature. He'd never seen such a material. "Entrapta?"

He went back up to the room with the tub. It was filled with steam and mountains of bubbles. Entrapta sat naked on the rim of the tub, her back to the door. She slid into the water just as he stepped into the room and right back out again. He knew from experience that Etherians took offense to being seen unclothed. He'd barged into the Force Captains' bunk room without warning once and exactly once, early on in the empire. It had not gone well.

"Hordak?" Entrapta called over the running water. "Is that you?"

"You got it working," he said from the stairwell. 

"It's just plumbing. What did you find?"

"What?"

"Hordak you can come in, it's ok."

He hesitated, then peeked around the door, not sure what to expect. 

No one was there. Only mounds of flower-scented bubbles.

Suddenly her head appeared over the rim of the tub. Her hair was soaking wet, and down out of her ponytails. A strand popped up and waved at him, flinging water.

"Hiiii," she chirped.

Hordak blinked. He took a hesitant step into the room.

"Don't get in," she said.

"I wasn't - " Hordak began. He couldn't tear his eyes from her. Presented like this - looking down at him from the tall crystal bathtub upon its platform, the flowing hair - she truly looked the part of a Princess. There was something regal about it, as though he were a merely courtier she'd summoned to her bath. 

It took his breath away.

"Did you think that's what I was doing?" he asked.

Entrapta put her arms on the rim of the tub and rested her chin in her hand.

"Maybe? I'm not against it," she said, "but this water is filthy. I've been living pretty rough for a while."

"Ah," Hordak replied. 

They stared at one another for a moment. There was a humor in Entrapta 's expression. A teasing.

"Stop that," he said, "or I will get in that water with you."

Entrapta blushed and dipped down so only her eyes peeked above the rim of the tub.

"Do not test me, mermaid."

She took a deep breath and submerged under the water. A strand of her hair waved goodbye to him. 

***

After taking a moment to clear his mind - he suddenly recalled she'd kissed him in the scout, recalled everything about that quite fiercely- Hordak went to the chamber to look at the crystal. Entrapta's tools, custom made for her hands, were so tiny he feared he might break them. He knelt down with the light and the loop to observe. 

He saw nothing. Purple crystal, to be sure, but nothing of the layers and levels Entrapta described. That was strange. She'd seemed so certain. A touch of delirium from exhaustion and starvation, perhaps?

"Isn't it something?"

He turned. She stood by the door in his red Ambassadorial robes, her hair loose, flowing down over her in a purple cascade. As she walked the robe trailed along behind her like a wedding gown.

Hordak stared. Entrapta smiled.

"Your hair is dry," he finally said. "How did you manage that?"

She shrugged. "If I want it dry it dries."

"Have you ever studied it?"

Entrapta took a lock of hair between her hands, holding it tenderly. "At length. Heh. Pun. But yeah, I've looked. It's ... baffling."

"Etherian magic resists sense at every turn," he said. 

She shook her head. "Technology that's advanced enough is indistinguishable from magic. One day I'll be able to explain it. Or someone will. But let's focus on explaining that," she said, indicating the crystal. "What do you think?"

"It's perplexing," he said, looking at her. "We will get to the bottom of it."

Her eyes lit up. "We will? You'll do that with me?"

"Yes."

She beamed at him.

"Fair warning, it could take years."

"We don't have years. We have until Prime repairs his fleet."

"How long will that be?"

Hordak considered this. "New satellites must be constructed and launched. Prime was not anticipating any surface-to-orbital confrontation from a planet without spaceflight, so it's likely he launched the whole set without backups. I. imagine that's the least of the damage. Depending how badly the good luck charm corrupted the fleet's other systems we are looking at some months. A year at most."

"Good luck charm?"

"This," he said, pulling the green crystal from it's home in his tunic. "I used it to shred the fleet's mainframe when Prime could not be reasoned with in time for me to retrieve you. He wished to test a weapon on Beast Island. I could not allow it."

She took the hand that held the crystal. "You kept it!"

"I did."

She smiled and touched his armor. "It's nice to know you appreciate-"

"Anyone who does not appreciate you is an utter fool. He shall be banished to..."

Entrapta chuckled. 

"Well we don't want him here with us. I will have to banish him elsewhere."

"No, he can stay in the Fright Zone. Or Bright Moon. Or ... or anywhere else on Etheria where people thought I was weird, where people you think are your friends abandon you, or stop talking to you, or ... or taze you and -"

"Not here," Hordak said, "and not where we're going."

She tilted her head. "Where are we going?"

He didn't know. He'd not realized he had the plan before he spoke it.

"If scouts had portal capability we'd have left Despondos already. But as a foreign dignitary I did not have the clearance for a larger ship." Hordak sighed. "It is only a matter of time till they unscramble the mainframe enough to see that the good luck charm was downloaded under my identifier. They gave me a limited access ID but they'd apparently forgotten I was once top general. I remember things these tanklings don't."

"And that's why the satellites are falling out of the sky?"

He nodded. "Let's hope nothing heavier joins them."

"Wait so you - you took out Prime's whole fleet ... for me?" 

He glanced down at her. Looked away. Straightened.

Hordak cleared his throat.

"Yes, I ... I did." 

She was silent for a moment. 

"Hordak..." she whispered.

Her eyes went wide, grew watery. He found this difficult to look at so he averted his gaze. She took his face between her hands and touched her forehead to his. 

"Why?" she whispered again. "Why did you do that?"

A tear rolled down her cheek. His heart pounded so hard he could not possibly hope to answer her. He tried to speak but nothing would come. All he could do was touch her face. 

"I love you too," Entrapta whispered. 

He drew her to him and kissed her.

Hordak paused in his recounting. He peered at Catra for a moment as if to ask whether she would make him describe further. If she would take this from him too. 

Catra had an expression on her face he could not quite read. Her body was stiff, her arms crossed. She looked pained. When she saw Hordak notice this she examined her claws, then glanced back at him.

"So you stranded the fleet for love, whatever," she snapped. "Way to openly admit to treason, Hordak. I'm sure Prime will find your reasoning very entertaining."

"I do not flatter myself to think Prime cares."

"Oh he cares. You're all they talk about in Command. I mean you're the talk of the entire Brotherhood right now."

"...what?"

Catra nodded. "Oh yeah," she said. "You're a total laughingstock. They laugh about how you're so weak you can't even stand up without cybernetics. How you couldn't even conquer a third of a planet run by little girls. And how you begged and pleaded Prime not to test the Glasser on your precious widdle Etheria. They say your defect must have moved into your brain, that's the only way anyone could be so fucking dumb." 

"I see. I'm still the first flawed clone Prime ever accepted back into the Brotherhood."

"Yeah, and he'll never do it again. So don't think you're some kind of inspiration to flawed clones everywhere. Prime's so pissed he's going to cleanse the ranks of any clone who has so much as a single letter out of place. Do you know how many of your brothers are going to die because of you? How many died when you wrecked the fleet? Nobody's rising up in your name, Hordak. They're using effigies of you for target practice."

Hordak shut his eyes and rested his head against the wall. "I'm honored."

Catra grew flustered at Hordak's non-reaction.

"Well - well - they're gonna be laughing even harder once they realize you actually betrayed the Brotherhood for love." She crossed her arms and furrowed her brow at him. "And you actually do love her," she said quietly. "That's the worst part."

He peered at her. "That's the worst part?"

She gave him an angry look, started to say something, but seemed to switch tracks at the last moment.

"Where - a-and - and you would have run off with her if you had a ship that could do portals? Just take what you want and leave both Etheria and the Horde here to clean up your mess? I found my little purple oowoo, time to bail? You're disgusting. You actually disgust me. You deserve how much they're gonna laugh at you for this. You deserve your upcoming torture and public execution."

"A public execution? I'm flattered."

"How!?"

"Prime wants the Brotherhood to remember me."

"Yes, for the way you scream when they peel your skin off. Stop trying to paint everything as a compliment. You're a cripple sack of shit and you're gonna die. Now shut the fuck up and tell me about the First Ones weapon you found in the chamber."

"I cannot do both."

"Shut up," she said, pressing her foot into his stomach hard enough to make him heave, "and. tell. me."


	5. all my needs

He told her lies. 

He would not - ever - reveal to anyone that it was possible - easy, even - to completely reboot a dead First Ones system if one happened to have a Horde singularity engine on hand. He had not revealed it over two days of torture, he certainly would not reveal it for Catra's wine and clumsy manipulations. He would not tell her a word of what happened later that night. 

Entrapta lay sprawled over him like a cat on a shelf, her head resting on his shoulder. Hordak slowly scratched her scalp. This seemed to put her into some sort of bliss, her eyes closed, a little smile. Her face was still flushed from earlier. In fact her entire body had taken on a pinkness. He knew Etherians grew pink in the face with exertion, but pink everywhere? This fascinated Hordak, the way everything else about her body fascinated him. The soft curves of her, the warmth, the narcotic feel of her skin against his. 

He hadn't been expecting this. Or at the very least he hadn't expected it here, now. From what he could tell neither had she. But they had not stopped at that kiss. At no point had they even paused. It wasn't five minutes until they'd somehow managed themselves into the bedroom, till Entrapta helped him out of his armor and she dropped his robe from her shoulders and they finally came together. 

Hordak had never been held. It ... collapsed him. He'd simply turned to liquid in her arms. His face on her chest, her cheek pressed to the top of his head, they lay quietly with matched breaths, clutching each other, absorbing one another. Her hair wrapped around them. He finally gathered himself enough to kiss her neck, then her lips, and on from there. Entrapta did not hesitate. She wound herself around him with real desire, which was also new to him. 

Hordak was not new to sex. Prime was a man of appetites, who liked to celebrate his conquests with the lavish feasts and wantoness his aristocratic roots demanded. Hordak had on rare occasion participated fully enough to end up in someone's bed. A courtesan from a conquered world, a dancer from some other conquered world, a foreign dignitary who had taken a liking to him over the course of a wine-soaked evening. And once a Companion who had been sniffing around him shortly before his cloning defect became outwardly apparent. 

Hordak lived to regret that. He should have known better. He did know better. But the Companions were trained in their dark arts, and trained well. Hordak let his curiosity get the better of him. He wondered for years what the Companion may have felt or seen on his body. What he might have told Prime.

Nevertheless, there was no desire in those encounters outside of what felt good in the moment. They meant nothing. The basis was transactional. It was not this. 

He'd never had gentleness. He'd never looked into a pair of adoring eyes, had never felt the urging and clutching and desperation of someone who truly wanted him. Never been nearly undone by every sound and breath and movement his partner made. He'd never been inspired to bite.

He brushed a strand away from her shoulder.

"Is this painful?" he asked, tracing his finger next to a huge, bright red bite mark on her shoulder. It was raw and wept droplets of blood.

"Mmm-hmm," she said, but she smiled.

"Oh," he said. "I will ... restrain myself next time."

Among his people a bite given at sexual climax was a sign of ownership, on both a biological and social level. Biologically it was intended to hold the female in place so the male could be certain of fertilization. Socially it was a way of marking one's territory, a warning to other males to stay away. Hordak had never bitten a partner before. 

"No need to apologize," Entrapta said. "I knew it was a possibility going in."

"You did?"

"Oh yes. Your species' sexual response cycle was the first thing I read about when you gave me access to your archives."

"No it wasn't," he replied, having been there at the time. He'd become used to her company by that point, had in fact started to enjoy it. Her infectious enthusiasm for building the portal had reinvigorated him. Her endless curiosity - an annoyance at first, like constantly humoring an overly inquisitive child who refused to be turned away - had gradually turned into something he treasured about her. Over the decades on Etheria he'd forgotten how much he knew. And she was genuinely interested.

It touched him, that interest. He tried not to let it. He'd tried to resist her, but like everything else regarding her he could not. He'd developed a taste for her happiness. He did not admit this to himself. He had merely decided that there was a rare nobility in her desire for knowledge that it would be criminal to deny. After all, that desire was the basis of his people's definition of true sentience, something most Etherians in their petty self- interest did not possess. 

It was definitely not that he liked seeing how big her eyes got when she was truly blown away. How her hair fluffed as though electrified when something thrilled her. No. It was merely that Entrapta was a highly valued asset to the Horde who had earned answers to her questions about the larger universe.

One day he turned to her and asked if she'd like to see it. 

"See it?" she asked, throwing her mask back as she looked up from a data crystal. Her eyes were as big and hungry as he'd hoped they'd be. He smiled slightly and drew up his archives containing solar navigation maps, leaning over her to show her how to use the program. When she took over from him his gaze fell to the rectangular cutout of her sleeve, which he'd always considered bad tailoring but at that moment found captivating. 

Entrapra leaned close to the screen, causing her hand to slide next to his, till the sides of their hands touched. She did not seem to register this, but the sensation tore through his brain like lightning. He looked down at his hand in amazement, almost expecting it to have physically changed somehow. 

"Hordak," she whispered, looking up at him. Her face was illuminated green from the display. 

"Y-yes?"

"This is ..." she glanced back at the screen, then at him. "Thank you."

There were tears in her eyes. He frowned at this.

"It has upset you?"

"What? No! It's - Hordak this is the best gift anyone's ever given me!"

"But you are..." he did not wish to say 'weeping', he would never accuse her of such weakness. He merely pointed at her eye.

"Oh! No, that's um...sometimes I cry when I'm really, really happy." She wiped her eye. "It's weird, I know."

"Oh," he said. "Odd. But I am ... glad you are pleased."

"I am," she said, then turned back to the screen. "Oh, I am."

He had a sudden insane and inappropriate desire to stroke her hair. To pet her. He did not. He merely wished her a good evening and left her with the archives, reeling at the warmth the entire interaction had given him. He could not remember the last time he'd been genuinely thanked for anything. And he'd certainly never made anyone weep with happiness.

He liked knowing that he could.

Now, in this strange but incredibly comfortable First Ones bed, he twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. He liked how it looked, the purple against the blue.

"As I recall the first thing you looked up in my archives were star charts," he said. "Not my sexual response cycle."

"It was the first thing I looked up after you left the room," she said, and kissed his shoulder. "I've read about the bite. I know what it means." She gave a crooked little smile and blushed. "You've claimed me." 

"Yes. It will serve as a warning to all who make an attempt at you, so that they may see the teeth that will rip out their throats."

"OooOOOooh," Entrapta said, in that curling way of hers, cuddling against him. 

Hordak smiled. "That pleases you?"

"So possessive," she replied, enchanted. "But I don't think I'll get the chance to watch you do it. No one's trying for my hand. I'm too weird."

"Nonsense. You are likely ignoring dozens of suitors."

"Believe me, I'm not. My only suitor was -"

She stopped short. She reached back to flip her mask down over her face as she did when she wished to hide, only to find it was not there. She curled her hand over her face instead, a strand of hair lifting to obscure her further. 

"Entrapta, where did you go?"

"Nowhere. I'm here."

Hordak smirked. Tilted his head down to hers.

"Your only suitor was -?" he whispered. 

"You're going to think I'm such a ...ack, no, I can't say it. It's weird. It's deeply weird."

"I'm not going to think you're such an anything, " Hordak said. "I am aware of you, Entrapta."

She made a tiny agonized sound. 

"You do not have to tell me," he said, but now he really wanted to know. Her only suitor was what?

"A robot," she whispered. "Back in Dryl I built robots for everything. All ... all my needs."

She continued to hide behind her hands and hair. He felt the tension in her body. 

He smiled. Yes. That tracked. 

"Is that all? How endearing," he whispered, pressing his face to the top of her head.. "If that's the case I would like to meet it."

She peeked out from behind her hair.

"You...you would?"

"Yes. I'll rip it's throat out."

"He doesn't have a throat exactly. And there's no need, I haven't ... I mean it's been years since ...." 

"Why? If you built it, I'm sure it's ingenious. Though I'm even more unimpressed by Etherian men that you resorted to robots."

"That's the thing, me too!" Entrapta said, finally lifting her hair from her face. "It wasn't something I resorted to, it was a preference. Robots are easier. I don't want Etherian men! Apparently what I want is you. I never met anyone before you that I wanted."

"And thus the universe opened a portal and sent me crashing to Etheria," Hordak said, stroking her hair. "For Entrapta will not be denied."

***

Not even the dead First Ones consoles could resist her will.

"Hordak," she stated a short time later.

He looked from between her thighs. Her whole body was flushed. She had been panting and purring and moving in rhythm with his mouth, leading to what he thought would be a devastating crescendo, when she suddenly stopped and said his name in a serious tone. 

He looked up at her questioningly.

"One sec," she said. She somersaulted out of the bed into her overalls and charged out of the room down the stairs, leaving him sprawled there in confusion. He put on his Ambassadorial robes and followed her, perturbed. 

"Entrapta? Why have you run from me?" he called as he crossed the chamber into the garage. "Entrapta -? Why - why are you ripping cables out of the scout?"

"I'm hooking this up to that, " she said, pointing to ship, then the dead First Ones console. "Singularity engine, right? Super powerful, basically inexhaustible? I'm booting up the system with it."

"...now?"

"Now is when the idea hit. Well not now, a few minutes ago when you were, um ...." she smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, blushing. "That was ... really ... I think you jostled something loose in my brain."

He raised an eyebrow. "This is what you were thinking about?"

"No, I wasn't thinking about anything! It was great! And then there it was, boom!" She began dragging a cable over to the console then stopped and turned to him. "Hordak is something wrong?"

"Well - we were - "

Entrapta looked at him blankly. Blinked.

He shut his eyes, shook his head and smiled.

"It's fine. Do you require assistance?"

"Yes actually, can you activate the engine once I get this all set up?"

He nodded and leaned against the ship, watching her work. He'd been enjoying that, but it was difficult to stay annoyed with her when she was bouncing around the chamber in nothing but overalls. 

"Punch it!" she called from the next room.

Hordak activated the engine and went into the chamber to join Entrapta. The entire room lit up bright white, every crystal suddenly awake. Entrapta gave a victorious shout. There was a series of tones, then the consoles lit up in iridescent rainbows. 

"It worked!" Entrapta cheered, and threw her arms around Hordak's waist. 

He rested his hands on her shoulders. "Of course it worked."

Hordak's ear flicked and he turned. The creaking he'd heard was a large C-shaped seating area rising out of the floor behind them, made of the same material as the bed upstairs. 

"Congratulations, we won a couch!" Entrapta said, flopping down upon it before it had even stopped rising. Though the window behind them the First Ones writing engraved on the walls of the volcano shaft had also lit up in a multicolored display. There was a sound of powering up, growing louder and louder, until it stopped and everything went purple.

"It's your color," Hordak remarked. "Exactly your color, in fact."

A bright pink First Ones glyph popped up on the screen, a blinking cursor below it.

"It's asking for a password," Entrapta said. 

"That's unusual. Don't most First Ones systems require a physical key?"

She nodded. "Unusual yes, but it's better this way. I stand some chance of hacking a password. You can't really hack a whole sword."

"If anyone could," Hordak said. 

Entrapta smiled. Something about her smile when he'd pleased her set off little supernovas in his brain. She reached up with her hair and drew him down to the couch. He landed leaning back against her. She threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed his ear.

Hordak's eyelids fluttered. "Do that again."

Entrapta smirked. She pressed her lips to him. Hordak closed his eyes. She kissed a few more times in rapid succession then nuzzled his ear hard against his head, kissing along the length of it and back again as though she'd been doing it all her life. He sighed and melted into her. 

"You read about this too, then?" 

"Mmmhmm," she replied. "It's the sweetest thing."

Kissing and nuzzling of the ears was an act of the greatest affection among his people. It was something parents did to comfort their children and remained a comforting gesture through adulthood. It was so inborn and instinctive it could even be witnessed in the Horde. Two clones who'd developed a noticeable affinity were said to be in one another's ears. 

"I thought about doing this to you all the time, " Entrapta said. "I'd watch you work and think, what would he do if I just went up and nuzzled his ear right now?"

"Probably die instantly."

She laughed and began to say something then stopped short. 

"Hmm. It's asking if I want a hint."

"What?" Hordak opened his eyes and looked at the console. Another glyph had appeared next to the first. 

"That's...extremely strange. Usually these systems are doing everything they can to keep you out," she said. "Yes? I'm thinking yes."

Hordak nodded. She tapped the screen. Another series of glyphs came up. Entrapta squinted at it.

"Something about ... the word for gem is there, and man. And chest - no - neck. Throat. Gem. Throat gem. With the man there it's ..." Entrapta paused. He felt her entire body tense. "Then gem at his throat," she whispered.

Entrapta looked around the room, her eyes wide. Hordak," she whispered, "why is everything my color?"

"I was wondering that myself."

Entrapta wriggled out from under him and turned to the console. He sat up. 

"I - I think - 'the gem at his throat' refers to the gem that powers your armor," she said. 

"It does?"

"Absolutely." Her hand hovered over the console, ready to type an answer, but did not move. "I don't understand. How does it know?"

"Know what?"

"Me," she said, gesturing to the purple room.

"Perhaps it scanned you somehow?"

"Maybe." She looked unconvinced. "What if it's a trap?"

"Do First Ones security systems often feature traps?"

"Absolutely yes," she replied, "but never a personalized one. I've never been called out like this before. I'm...most likely the only one on Etheria who can respond correctly to that prompt. Which would imply the First Ones knew about me somehow, but that's impossible ... isn't it?"

"We've been over this, Entrapta. Time travel is not a thing."

"That you know of. If you could generate enough energy-"

"Not even the First Ones-"

"We don't know that!"

"We do! Don't you think things would have turned out differently for them if they had that technology? If it could be done some race would have by now, and their Empire would dwarf Prime's. We are Lords of the known universe and have never seen a single successful attempt on any level larger than the sub-atomic. It is not time travel."

Entrapta crossed her arms. "Not every race has universal conquest as a goal."

"It would have been co-opted by those that did. I'm sorry Entrapta, that is just the way of things."

He could tell she was unconvinced.

"Fine," she said. "Not time travel. Then what?"

Hordak looked at the console and took a deep breath. "Only one way to find out."

She frowned. Her hand hovered over the console for a moment, then lowered and began to type.

"What does the gem at my throat say?"

"'Loved."

She entered the glyph, and the room exploded in light. 

Hordak did the first thing which came to mind, which was to cover Entrapta with his body to shield her from whatever it was. He leapt over her, pressing her into the seat. But there was no explosion, no heat, no flying shards of crystal. 

There was, however, a voice.

"Hi Entrapta!" it shouted over a ton of noise. "If you're seeing this that means you made it to the chamber and managed to boot the system - considering how statistically unlikely that is I should really congratulate you!"

That voice.

Hordak turned. Entrapta popped out from under him. A huge holographic display emitted from the purple crystal in the gold box. It showed a halo of bright white energy, throbbing with deafening voltage. Suddenly someone stepped in front of it, waving. A silhouetted woman with moving tendrils of hair which flowed to the power source behind her. There was something conical on her head. She released a handful of confetti.

"Hooray you did it!" she shouted over the halo. "No time to rest on your laurels though, we have a lot to cover in not a lot of time!"

The figure stepped close enough to the camera for the correct light and focus to resolve itself. A big smile. Twinkling red eyes. Her hair was white and full of beads, she wore a dirty blue jumpsuit, her face had many lines and bore glowing wire implants, but-

"Hi Entrapta!" the figure said. "I'm you!"

"TIME TRAVEL!" his Entrapta shouted. She stood on the couch, pointing both index fingers at the screen.

"I know what you're thinking - because I'm you - and that's not a time machine behind me! Time travel is not a thing. Sorry."

Hordak pointed at the display.

"Well not exactly. Look, Queenie punches holes in other timelines and uses a very inaccurate locator to do so - I'm about five hundred years behind you. I-" the machine made an extremely loud whirring. Elder Entrapta held her finger up as though telling them to wait. "Hang on, I know that's annoying! " she shouted, her voice barely discernible. "She's phasing down, it'll stop in a sec!"

As predicted the whirring stopped, the noise and the light. Elder Entrapta resolved, standing in front of an incredibly complicated circular machine studded with crystals, circuits and vials of glowing purple liquid. A current arced in spirals within it, with a purring hum-hum-hum. Behind it the room she was in came into view - the very chamber he and Entrapta sat in currently. 

"There she is, that's Queenie!" Elder Entrapta said, patting the machine. "Say hi Queenie! Oh, I am in so much trouble for her, you would not believe it. Entire civilizations are after me for altering timelines. Just fyi what I'm doing right now is highly illegal but you know what, so is theft. And that's what happened to you, me! Theft! You were robbed. ROBBED!"

Something flashed in Elder Entrapta's eyes Hordak had never seen in Entrapta's. A manic, unbridled outrage. 

"Here's the thing, um -" Elder Entrapta paused, glancing at a readout. "Oof, not a lot of time, gotta hurry this up. So the deal is, this chamber you're sitting in right now is a machine Mara, the She-Ra before Adora, built using your runestone. You know the Runestone you just don't have for some reason? Yeah you do, only on your timeline she's on Beast Island in a million little pieces because Mara destroyed her to make this thing. I am not sure what it does but you'll figure it out, you like figuring things out. So. You know. Have fun with that. And really do it - the Dryl runestone is destroyed in most timelines, but I found out that the more Entraptas reunite with their runestones the more powerful all our runestones become! Especially mine - but mine's complete. Always was. Hardly ANY Dryl runestones are complete because Mara keeps DESTROYING her, over and over and over! I mean if it's not Mara it's someone - it's like- it's like a conspiracy. We are not MEANT to be STUCK on ONE Etheria, Entrapta! We are the ring, the constant, the BRIDGE! How dare ANYONE take that from ANY of us! It's THEFT! It's MURDER!"

Elder Entrapta's eyes gleamed with a messianic fury, her hair fluffing. The machine began to whir. She glanced at it.

"Oh shit, there she goes. Now listen! I hacked the system and gave you sole admin of the whole thing. No She-Ra, no sword, just you. Your runestone, your machine. Mara can eat it. Whatever she built, it's all yours to do with as you please. Good luck!

"Oh also before I go - hi Hordak! No Hordak on my timeline - no Horde - but you're VERY nice looking. Big tall cyborg with the glowing eyes and pointy ears and the armor? Nice pull, me!" She blew a kiss. The machine lit up behind her, the whirring getting faster and louder. "I'm sure you're a great guy. Be good to her, okay? Okay I gotta go - I -" She glanced back at the machine. "Shit - bye!"

She picked up the camera. The feed shut off. It was replaced with a still image of pink text reading OPEN THIS PANEL, with a flashing arrow pointing directly down to indicate the pedestal on which the crystal sat. 

Hordak turned to Entrapta. She was flattened against the back of the couch, her eyes wide.

"Wow," she said. "Lots to unpack there." After a moment she took a deep breath and rose to her feet. "Help me open this?"

She did not need much help, the panel opened with a mere gentle press, but Hordak suspected it was more that she wanted to face whatever was behind it together. She leaned against him. She did not talk about the message but Hordak could feel it working its way through her. 

Hordak gently removed the panel and set it down. They peered inside. It was wires, pipes, gold, chrome, bronze, ceramic. Vials of liquid. Crystals. Small pearlescent nodules. It gave the impression of a huge piece of jewelry rather than a machine.

Entrapta gave a sharp gasp. "Look," she said, her voice small and pained.

She pointed at a sparkling purple joint between two pipes, a purple seam on a wire, a vial of purple liquid. There was no component untouched by purple crystal.

Entrapta had stopped breathing. Hordak looked down. She grimaced and clutched her chest, her eyes wide. 

"They ground her to dust," she said, panting. "They - they ground her to dust!"

"Are you all right?"

Her breaths came faster. "She's - she's communicating with me - some sort of telepathic -" she patted her overalls and retrieved her recorder, fumbling to press record. "Day Two of Sanctum the machine exhibits - it ex - exhibits -ohhhh - "

Her eyes went wide. Unfocused. She dropped the recorder.

"Entrapta?" 

She hugged her arms around herself, her eyes gone wide. "No! No!" She shrieked in pain and covered her ears, driving her hands into her hair. "No! Hordak close it, close it!"

He slammed the panel back in place. Entrapta moaned in relief and bent over double. 

"Entrapta?" he put his hands on her back. "Entrapta."

"Mara ground her to dust," she gasped, "she did it slowly, over months and months, it was torture, she TORTURED her. She used every last bit of her to make every part of the machine, to make it - self perpetuating - somehow - but she was alive and CONSCIOUS the whole time and - and - she still is, but she's trapped. Mara MUTILATED her and left her completely ALONE here for a thousand years!" Entrapta put her palm on the side of the podium and panted, pressing her palm to her chest. "I felt it. I felt all of it. A thousand years of it. It hurt so much."

"Are you ill? Has it affected you physically? Sit up, let me see you."

Entrapta did. Her body showed no immediate of injury, breath and heartbeat were slightly elevated but normal. He would run a scan on her later, he decided. 

"She's so angry," Entrapta said, wiping her eyes.

"Can you still hear her?"

She shook her head. "The podium casing is made of crystal that's been through some sort of process. She can't connect when the panel is closed. She's been screaming to herself for centuries. No wonder the other Entrapta was so angry. Mara tortured her friend on billions of timelines."

"Are YOU all right?"

"I ... I think I will be. I'm cold." She tugged at his robe. "Let me in here." She opened robe and crept into his lap.

"There's a blanket in the scout," Hordak remembered. "Behind the ration packs."

"This is nice," she muttered against his shoulder. "Hordak I feel...terrible. She did not deserve that."

"None of this is your fault."

"My bloodline, then. Whoever was princess of Dryl at the time must have agreed to this somehow. But how could she? It's horrendous. The runestone is alive, she would have felt everything that happened to her."

"Maybe Mara killed her."

"Murder doesn't seem like a very She-Ra move."

"Not an Adora move, no. But Mara was a different She-Ra. Perhaps she was willing to slay whoever stood before her and a resource she needed."

"What could possibly be so important?" Entrapta whispered.

"Apparently that machine was."

"What was it meant to do?"

"Can you ask it?"

"Her," she corrected. She took a deep breath. "I'll try."

She leaned towards the podium. Hordak held her hips. "You don't have to ask now."

Yes I do," Entrapta replied. "I need the data. Just...hold onto me."

He nodded and slid his arms around her. Entrapta braced herself and opened the panel.

"Hi again!" she said brightly. "I understand you're - oooooooh," she said. That last oh had a wobble to it, an unease he'd never heard in her voice. It chilled him to his core.

"Okay," Entrapta said, making an effort to breathe normally. "Okay. I'm - I'm listening. I'm listening." After a moment she gasped, a sharp gasp like she'd stepped on a nail. "No! No! You don't understand, I'm not her! That was a thousand years ago, a different Princess! I'm Entrapta, I'm-"

She made a choked sound and went silent. She leaned forward far enough to lay both her palms flat on the floor. She bowed her head

Hordak felt an outrage rise in him.

Entrapta bowed to NO ONE.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry but I can't undo it. I don't know what they did. Will you - will you tell me what they did? I - no - hey! Well then what- what do you want me to do?"

Entrapta went silent for a long few moments, then gasped in pain and covered her ears. "No," she said, shutting her eyes tight. "Please don't. Don't don't don't don't -!"

Hordak grabbed the panel and slammed the podium shut. 

"No more of this."

Entrapta nodded and went limp against him. 

"The Princess of Dryl helped Mara do this. Willingly. For ... for science. She built the treated crystal chamber so she wouldn't feel the runestone's pain. The runestone thinks I'm her. I tried to tell her I'm a different person but ... " She shook her head. "I tried to get her to tell me what they built but she said she wanted a sacrifice."

"What, like a god?" Hordak balked. "Who does this machine think she is?"

"She's insane," Entrapta whispered.

"What did she want?"

"She told me to cut off my scalp and stuff my hair in the machine housing, and then jump off a cliff so high that all my blood spills and my bones shatter into dust on impact. Then she'll let me know what the machine does. "

"Trying to sound tough," Hordak muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"She sounds like an enemy general on the verge of losing a war. She's behaving like a cornered animal."

"She is a cornered animal."

"Whatever she is, we needn't engage with her now," he said, picking Entrapta up and taking her to the bedroom. "You are still recovering from your survival ordeal. No more of this until you rest, do you understand?"

Entrapta nodded tiredly.

"Perhaps in the meantime she'll learn to be a bit more polite," Hordak said, casting a glance back at the machine before heading up the stairs. 

***


	6. Alpha Bat and The Party

To his surprise Entrapta conceded to this. He kept expecting to wake up in the middle of the night to an empty bed and Entrapta suffering before the open panel, but he did not. While she did not seem eager to revisit the runestone he could feel it weighing on her, so he did all he could to keep her preoccupied. 

They mated. Played games. They washed their clothes in the bathtub and hung them up to dry. He explained every last component and system in the scout ship, letting her pore delightedly over the engine. Every so often she glanced back at the podium, her brow furrowing. She turned back to him and caught his eye. She tilted her head. 

"How long have you been out of your armor?"

"I - I don't know," he replied, taken aback. 

"A few days now I think."

"I think you're right."

"It's the bed," Entrapta said. "Mattresses are not the Horde's strong point."

"The bath, I think. It did help," he admitted.

Entrapta couldn't believe Hordak had never had a bath. He took showers, short ones, cold, as he had done all his life. Sitting in a tub of hot water was a waste of time, a frivolous comfort for the weak and idle. 

"Are you - are you - are you kidding me?" Entrapta stammered when he revealed this information. "Take off your clothes! Right now!"

He wore the Ambassadorial robe, which had quickly turned into a multipurpose garment they passed between them. Entrapta was perched naked the edge of the tub. A second bite mark decorated her other shoulder. He'd followed her into this humid, flower-drunk room like a lost puppy after sex wherein which she'd discovered the domicile controls for the living areas, providing them with heated floors and strange crystalline First Ones music. And now she was still naked, flushed and glistening, ordering him into her bath. 

"My life has become an adolescent fever dream," Hordak said.

Entrapta grinned as she slid into the water. "Come on!"

Shortly after he got in he decided he was never getting out again. The weightlessness and heat were rapturous on his broken body. Entrapta hovered over him expectantly but he couldn't speak for fear he might break in two with relief.

"You look very happy," Entrapta whispered in his ear. 

He slid his arm around her and pressed her to his side. She made a happy little noise and cuddled against him. Nuzzled his ear. The contentment was so obliterating he began to doze off. 

Entrapta rolled so her back was to his side and pressed her open hand firmly to the wall. There was a little chime and a display opened up with glyphs and simple illustrations. 

"I think you can just press anywhere and it brings the controls up," she said, "so long as you press like you mean it." 

She had been pressing like she meant it when she discovered this, riding him with a single minded hunger while bracing herself against the wall. She'd merely glanced at the new display and kept going. Something about that was too much for him and he grabbed her hips, pressing himself as deep inside her as he could. Entrapta threw her head back and gasped in such a way that Hordak was afraid he'd hurt her. He was much larger than her, so much so that he'd questioned their physical compatibility on many occasions, and farther back in their partnership than he would have previously admitted to himself. 

Only a month ago he'd regularly disregarded his urges to pet her hair, to pull her into his lap when she sidled close to him to show him a data pad.. He put them out of his mind almost as soon as they occurred to him. Just some nonsense spat out by the lower brain. Not important. Didn't happen. And, had he spared a thought on it - which he did not - had no chance of happening. He knew Entrapta respected him but he did not bother to imagine she might be attracted to him. She was pretty and young and brilliant and he likely appeared as freakish and monstrous to her as he did to the other Etherians, something he had perpetuated by design. 

But Entrapta had odd tastes for her species. Entrapta was strong. His size did not intimidate her more than anything else about him did and he adored her for that. So when he slid inside her to the hilt and she gasped, threw her head back, locked her ankles around his thighs and kept riding, it was all he could do to keep from exploding. He grit his teeth and drove his talons into her hips. The interplay between her muscles moving under his palms and the pressure and heat and slickness inside her was not slowing things down for him. She slid her hands up his chest as she leaned over him, her movements becoming more focused. She bit her bottom lip, her rhythmic soft whimpers growing louder and louder, until she cried out wincing and spasmed around him. Hordak let go, clutched her body to his and forced his teeth down onto her shoulder, and with a series of agonized groans pounded every hot drop of himself inside her as she came. 

Entrapta collapsed on top of him, limp down to her hair, which tended to fluff out then unravel out of its ponytails and fall flat when she climaxed. He liked that. Her hair often had a mind of its own but at that moment, it was just her. No hair, her rapid-fire mind deactivated from pleasure, Entrapta being a simple mammal desperate to come and using him to do it. 

"Oh wow," Entrapta panted. She blew a raspberry. "Geez. Anyway, check this out," she said, and pressed her palm to the wall above their heads. In short order they figured out what it did - not terribly difficult as the domicile controls used illustrations rather than glyphs - and had adjusted the temperature in the room, the humidity, the lighting. And music! Odd, crystalline melodies with a regular, hypnotic beat he found to his taste. 

She pressed a picture that looked like a shelf. They heard something slide open next to the bed.

"A comforter!" Entrapta squealed. "Pillows! Hordak look, a thousand years old, not a spot of mold, not moth-eaten!" She said, pummeling him with pillows. "They even smell nice!" she said, burying her face in the comforter. 

Hordak threw a pillow back at her. She picked it up with her hair and lightly whapped his head with it. He took another one and clapped her on the shoulders. Entrapta used her hair to stand and used more of it to pick up more pillows.

"It's on," she said.

Hordak glanced around the room. "What's on?" he barely asked before Entrapta launched her assault. It was a game he quickly adjusted to - he'd participated in similar things as a tankling - and they were quite evenly matched. He may have been seven and a half feet tall but she had extra arms at will. It ended when she finally cornered him, using her hair to rapid fire pillows into him. He leapt out and grabbed her by the waist, pinning her arms and hair to her sides, then rolled on top of her.

"Hey!" she cried, laughing. "This is not legal in pillow fighting!"

Since he was right there he began kissing her breasts. Softly bit her nipple.

"Ooooh," she said. "I still won, but oooooh."

"I disagree, I'm clearly the victor here," he said, muffled against her flesh. He kissed her sternum then proceeded downward. "Don't run off this time."

And now the tub. Entrapta straddled him, rubbing soap into his hair. He closed his eyes and let her do this. He'd let her do anything. 

"There," she said. "You're a unicorn. "

He opened his eyes. Felt the top of his head. Entrapta had soaped his hair up into a long point. Hordak held his breath and dipped beneath the water. When he came back up Entrapta placed a pile of bubbles on his head.

"I crown you king," she said solemnly. 

Hordak burst out laughing. "There's really no escape, is there?"

She smiled and shook her head.

"Do you know the code name the Horde has for you, back in the Fright Zone?"

"Ooooh, I have a code name?"

"Yes. I have one too. It's mostly for use in combat situations where communications might be intercepted, but it's also used to inform different departments of my comings and goings. I have one, anyone close to me has one - Shadow Weaver, for example. She was Spider. She didn't like it."

"Why not? She's clearly a spider, with the weaving and all."

"That's what I thought."

"Did she change it?"

"She can't. It's a tradition that the officers pick the code names. It has to be something they find memorable, that works for them. So long as it's respectful what they say goes. Mine, for example, is Alpha Bat. But yours -"

"Alpha BAT? Why bat?"

Hordak blinked. "Entrapta have you not ... noticed the batness?" he said, gesturing to his face. 

She tilted her head. Squinted. "Oh yeah, I guess you do have some bat qualities."

"You never put that together before?"

She shrugged. "That's just ... how you look."

"You quite baffle me sometimes, Princess."

"I know," she said, and nuzzled his ear. "What's my code name?"

"I am Alpha Bat," he said, "and you are The P-" he stopped to laugh. It STILL made him laugh.

"The what?"

"The Party," he said against laughter. "The Party! I almost started laughing aloud the first time I heard that. Every time they used it it was the fight of my life. 'Alpha Bat and The Party are en route to the foundry,' and there you are scuttling along with three data pads and tools in your hair, and there I am trying not to crack up in front of the Force Captains."

"That sounds like a band," she said. "That sounds like a GOOD band. Alpha Bat and The Party, live in the Fright Zone!"

"Live on Beast Island," he corrected.

"Live in the bathtub!" she cheered. "See? Baths are good."

"As per usual you are correct. You'll have to invent something to drag me out of here."

So yes, it was the bath that made his body ache less without armor. And the bed. And the girl. 

A strand of Entrapta's hair slithered beneath the pilot's seat to explore the undercarriage of the scout ship. She made little catlike noises of interest, a finger to her mouth. He wanted to kiss her for existing.

Especially the girl.

"You're a clone," she said, fiddling around with a switch.

"I -" he blinked at the suddenness of the statement. "Yes?"

"Does that mean the entire Horde army looks just like you?"

"The majority of it. There are a few different models. The Hordaks are about eighty five percent of -"

"THE Hordaks? You - you go by the name of your model?"

"Yes."

She looked troubled. "So you don't have a name."

"My name is Hordak."

"Do you all answer to Hordak?"

"Yes."

"How does that work?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if you're in a room full of Hordaks and the one Hordak you want to talk to is across the room, what do you yell?"

"I would walk up to him. To shout is unseemly."

"What if you can't walk up to him and you need his attention?"

He paused for a moment.

"That," he said.

"I didn't hear anything."

"That's because you are not a bat," he said. "It is a vocalization above the frequency of Etherian hearing. My people can direct sound quite accurately in the higher frequencies. If I need a certain Hordak's attention I simply send it into his ear. Our hearing is such that he would be able to figure out exactly where it came from."

"Faaaaascinating," Entrapta said, leaning in and folding her hands fetchingly beneath in her chin as she did when he had her undivided attention. "But how do you tell each other apart visually?"

"That's the reason for the white face. The natural members of my species are entirely blue. No white. Clones can see ultraviolet and there are patterns on our faces in that spectrum, each entirely unique. We all appear very different from one another."

"But you're still all named Hordak."

"This troubles you?"

"I just feel like you should have your own name."

"My name is Hordak. All the Hordaks are named Hordak. Even the Companions."

"Companions?"

"Yes. Prime's spies and agents of statecraft."

Entrapta's eyes grew wide. "Oooooh," she said. "Tell me about them."

"Ah. Well. They're ... " his voice drifted. He'd never been asked to describe them before. "They're the smallest class, a few thousand at most. The others have hundreds of millions. Very important to the Empire. Indispensable to Prime. Most clones are .... disposable," he said, gesturing to himself. "But not Companions. Clones of every class are entered into basic training a week after we are detanked. Companions, however, rarely remain on their birth ship. They are taken away from the Horde to be trained elsewhere. To be educated."

"Educated in what?"

"They are given the full education of my people's aristocrats, from what I understand. When they are older they are educated in statecraft. Psychology and politics, how to influence entire societies to Prime's will. They're taught how to look beautiful. And how to seduce. A ... great deal on how to seduce."

Prime did not usually rain down violence upon his conquests as a first step. He often began with enticement, with a Woo. This was especially true of systems which bore advanced civilizations with high technology and strong defenses. With more warlike or capitalist species these Woos were straightforward affairs where terms were hammered out without much ado. But some species had surpassed the thrills of conquest millennia ago and had instead pledged themselves to stillness, to beauty, to poetry. For these, Prime sent in an exhaustively trained agent. 

A Companion. Or, as they preferred to be called, Specialists.

Prime put an inordinate amount of time and resources into their design. When their education was finished and it was time for them to be assigned, Prime often tweaked their faces and bodies to appeal to the target species' highest ideals of beauty, while still very much his clone. The Companion was to exude whatever the species in question considered highly desirable qualities in a mate, as it was nearly universal that nothing provided a better platform from which to manipulate. This siren was placed with - gifted to - the civilization's leaders as a consultant or vizier. From there he worked his way into whatever chamber would deliver the prize. It was well known that the conflicts they won for Prime were often won in a bed. The skill they must possess in that arena was something every Horde soldier contemplated at one time or another. For this the Companions were regarded by the rest of the Brotherhood as objects of fantasy, a class of warlocks, a subset of silvertongues and spies and seducers. Not trusted, yet lusted after.

Such was the case with this particular Companion, or, as his hosts had named him, Mikal. He swept into the Flagship's main ballroom with the Empraud and Empresa of High Rix on each arm, and a stunning threesome they made. Mikal stood a full foot and a half taller than his new elfin spouses. Already somewhat elfin Prime had not edited Mikal's physical form beyond his eyes, which glowed not red, but a deep and calming blue. Hordak gave a small gasp. It was such a small change but shocking nonetheless.

"The eyes are striking, are they not?" Prime said quietly to Hordak. "That particular blue soothes the Rixian sympathetic nervous system. They can't get enough of it." Prime grinned. "They're complete sluts for that blue."

"Brilliant work, sir."

"Seems so. Mikal has delivered lightyears above my expectation. He originally targeted the Empresa," he said indicating a gold-encrusted sylph in blue silks who hung one of Mikal's arms, "but then he bagged the Empraud as well. And now they're MARRYING him! In a few years the Empraud will die - of quite natural causes of course-"

"-of course-"

"-and then the Empresa, and Mikal will rule with complete unquestionable legitimacy. Twelve systems, and delivered into my hands without a drop of blood spilt! THAT is empire building, General." Prime smiled and extended his arms grandly to greet them. "Empraud and Empresa, I'm so pleased you chose to honor my Flagship with this joyous occasion!"

The Empresa made a coy gesture. "A union born in stars and light," she said, her voice high and reedy. Her pale hands fluttered in a hypnotizing pantomime as she spoke. "And, by his progenitor Horde Prime, who bore us Mikal, born himself of stars and light!"

Mikal turned to the Empresa, looking genuinely touched.

"Amella," he whispered, and kissed her hand. "I knew nothing before you. I was born of the sands of Rix."

"What god blew them into the sky to make the stars," she whispered, beaming up at him. "And so formed Mikal."

"In all things stars and light," the Empraud said, grinning. "It is you, Emperor. I give you the sands of Rix!" he laughed. A Rixian servant appeared with a vial of pink crystalline sand on a pillow, and bowing, offered it to Prime. 

Prime grinned and held it up to examine it. "How it sparkles! In all things stars and light, indeed. I thank you, Empraud."

"It is I," The Empraud said, smiling at Mikal. "And it is Rix."

Prime nodded. "It is Rix."

The Empraud and Empresa smiled and bowed to Prime, who bowed in return. While they turned their attention elsewhere Prime put his hand on Mikal's shoulder. 

"Empraud!" he said. "And beautifully achieved, my friend. I could not possibly be more pleased."

Mikal gave a demure smile. "I did promise you the sands of Rix."

"And I never had a doubt," Prime said. "Nevertheless, flawlessly executed. Because of you, High Rix is finally mine." Prime put his arm over Mikal's shoulder - something Hordak had never seen him do to a clone - and held up the vial of sand. He lowered his voice. "Tell me, what am I to do with this?"

"Whatever you like," Mikal replied. "Slide it up your ass."

In that moment Hordak left his body. He was surely about to witness Mikal's death for speaking so disrespectfully to Prime. But the Emperor remained silent, as though considering it.

"In ALL things stars and light," Prime said, and the two of them burst into laughter. Prime turned to Hordak. "Ah look, we've scandalized the General!"

When Mikal looked at Hordak something flashed in his blue eyes that caught Hordak off guard. Interest. A pointed interest in Hordak. Mikal glanced at Prime as though for confirmation of something, but Prime did not react.

"General," Mikal said to Hordak. "My apologies for any offense."

"Nonsense. Lighten up, General. It was a joke. Have some Rixian lightwine, enjoy the reception!" He gave Mikal a friendly pat on the shoulder before stepping away. "I think I'll go ask your wife to dance. You're a lucky man, Empraud."

This left Mikal and Hordak alone. 

"Empraud," Hordak said. He had to remind himself to look away from his eyes. 

"General." Mikal studied him. "It's been years. It is good to see you again."

"Is it?"

"Certainly!" Mikal said brightly. "Prime told me of your recent victory over the Drik Consortium. It is about time they were put down. Well done. Prime did tell me you are his most brilliant General."

"He did?" Hordak asked, taken aback. "He … hasn't told me that."

"Ah, you know how he is."

Hordak nodded, but he didn't know how Prime was - at least not the way Mikal apparently did.

"Tell me-" Hordak began hesitantly. "How is it you are able to joke with him so?"

"Oh, that? We've said worse, believe me," Mikal said, chuckling. "You've never joked with Prime?"

"I'd never dare."

"You ought to try, you might find him amenable to it," Mikal said, but for some reason his suggestion was tinged with sadness. Hordak registered this but did not know what it meant, so he did not address it.

"I think your class are far better with humor than mine has any hope of being," Hordak said. 

Mikal flinched at this. 

"General-" he began, but stopped.

Hordak peered at him.

Mikal met his eyes and leaned in slightly, as though he had something important to impart.

"Do not underestimate yourself. Look deeply within and you may find capabilities of which you were entirely unaware. In fact I am certain of it." Mikal put his hand to his chest and slightly dipped his head, an informal sign of respect between Companions. 

Hordak smirked. "Certain of it, are you? It sounds more like Rixian philosophy has worn off on you."

Mikal smiled pleasantly and folded his hands. "Perhaps. But you are popular, aren't you? Well liked among your Brothers?"

"One does not remain Top General long otherwise."

"Oh I disagree, the Top before you was a humorless prick. But your men, they like you. You have a way with them. Or perhaps they just long to be in your ears," he said. "I would, were I them. You always did cut an impressive figure, General." He smiled. "Ah, but I should return to the Empraud and Empresa! A pleasure speaking with you."

He gave a polite bow and swept back towards his spouses, leaving Hordak reeling. A Companion had just _made a pass at him_, like something out of a Force Captain's daydream. But such interest could not possibly be good. Could it? He was being investigated. Was he? Or did Mikal … actually admire him? His mind spun. He picked up a glass of lightwine off a passing tray.

Despite himself Hordak was unable to tear his eyes from Mikal for the entirety of the evening's extended ritual music, dances, and poetry. Mikal recited a soliloquy he'd written to his new spouses in their own flowery language, complete with their elegant hand movements. The way the light caught his rings and the crystals in his gown made him appear as something otherworldly. His profession of love came across as genuinely moving and heartfelt, finished to rapturous applause. Hordak watched how worshipfully he touched them as they danced their whirling dances, the multiple layers of their silken gowns flying. He lifted the gold-dripping Empresa and pressed his forehead to hers like he would adore her forever. He moved through the room like a force of nature, glowed unlike any clone Hordak had ever seen. 

They kept catching one another's eye. Mikal smiled shyly at him from across the room, over his new husband's shoulder. His sustained interest set off alarm bells in Hordak's head but each time it happened something in him stirred. It seemed that as the celebration progressed Mikal became more and more stunning until the entire room was drunk with him, thought it was more likely they were drunk on lightwine, an airy glowing concoction that carried no taste of alcohol despite its strength. It tasted like the first hit of spring and Hordak, like everyone else present, drank too much of it. Even Prime. 

When Hordak finally left the reception the Emperor was forcefully tongue kissing one of the two scantily clad Rixian aristocrats lolling in his lap. A young Horde commander sat on a step at the foot of Prime's throne looking confused, perhaps never having been this drunk. The dancing had devolved from elegant whirling to a lot of stumbling and falling and laughing, the music turning more heated and tribal as the night progressed. Hordak glanced around for Mikal but he'd long left with his new spouses. He'd had the silly hope to look upon him one last time. Barring that it was time to stumble back to his quarters and fall face-first into his bed. He was tired. His chest and arms hurt, as they did more and more these days. Deep, twisting pains that had begun to worry him. 

The fastest way to his quarters was through the observation deck, which consisted of a wide bridge that crossed parallel to a twelve story window. Today it looked out upon the pink pearl of Rix, her moons, and the multicolored galaxy beyond. Hordak was well used to seeing stunning spacescapes here, but he was rarely intoxicated. It was the lightwine more than anything that made him stop in awe. Those massive planets, hanging in the void like Rixian baubles. He felt, for a moment, quite extraordinarily peaceful.

"General?"

Hordak turned. On a couch in one of the bridge's seating areas sat Mikal, his huge hat and heels and the bulkier parts of his ceremonial gown sitting at his feet. He smiled.

"I thought that was you."

"How did-"

"I'm glad you're here. I feel I owe you an apology. I was … inappropriate, earlier."

Hordak blinked. "No - no need." He forced his attention away from Mikal's beauty. Collected himself. "If you want to apologize, apologize for casing me."

Mikal's ears flicked. He tilted his head, intrigued. "Casing you?"

Hordak felt a ripple of shame but he'd called him out, and now he had to go all in. 

"I see the way you look at me. It's rarely a good thing when a Companion takes an interest. What does Prime want?"

Mikal placed a bejeweled hand to his chest and batted his genetically enhanced eyelashes. "Goodness, a brilliant General AND a brilliant detective! How do you fit so much in one Brother of Prime? Yes, Hordak, you've caught me out. Prime discovered a terrible secret about you. In fact he has already arranged your death."

Hordak's eyes widened. His breath stopped.

"W - what?"

Mikal held Hordak's eye with absolute seriousness for the longest five seconds of his life before bursting into laughter. 

"No, you tankling! You absolute cunt! Why is it you dreadful bores in Command think we're trying to ferret out your secrets if we so much as greet you in the mess hall? Every last one of you swears Prime wants to read your precious little mind and thinks a Specialist - it's _Specialist_, by the way- will be the one to do it. It might surprise you that some of us REALLY ARE only saying hello." Mikal shook his head and held a pen to his mouth, which briefly glowed green before he exhaled a long exasperated plume of sweet, floral vapor. "Honestly. How dare you."

Hordak wanted to melt into the floor.

"I - I -"

"I, I!" Mikal imitated him, chuckling. He pointed to the cushion next to him. "Sit down, you tit."

Hordak ambled awkwardly over to the couch and sat. Mikal rested his chin on his hand and regarded him cooly, but with a hint of humor. Hordak had trouble meeting his eyes.

"I apologize," he said, his throat dry.

"I know," Mikal said, taking another hit from his pen. "I'm not trying to get at your secrets, General. In fact, I'll tell you one of mine. State secret. For you alone. " Mikal leaned in close to him. "Prime altered me to constantly emit very low levels of Rixian sex hormones. Not enough to be noticeable on a scan, but enough to drive the Empraud and Empresa just ever so slightly insane. They will always desire me madly, from now until the end of time. Which is good, I suppose, as this is where I will be till the end of time." He gestured to Rix floating below them and sighed. "That is home for me, now. Forever."

"You … do not wish this?"

"What I wish is irrelevant, it is my duty to the Horde."

Hordak frowned. 

"Don't misapprehend me, Amella and Tesh are lovely people. I even care for them, and their lovely little empire with it's lovely little planets and lovely little culture. It's almost enough to make me regret murdering them. But this," he said, indicating the flagship, "this is where I want to be, General. This is where the conquest is, the adventure. The intrigue! I will miss it terribly. With every bit of me. And even more I will miss my Brothers. The smell of them, the taste of them. My charges are fun, I will admit, but they are not what I crave."

Mikal exhaled a plume of vapor and fixed Hordak in his hypnotic blue gaze.

Hordak froze.

"Come here," Mikal whispered.

Almost involuntarily he moved closer to Mikal. The Empraud took Hordak by the ear in a way that made him gasp.

"You're - you're endangering your mission," Hordak panted.

"God yes, I am," Mikal said, and kissed him.

He began to describe the intense, risk-infused coupling that followed but stopped when he noticed Entrapta shift uncomfortably, her face flushed. He gave her a questioning look.

"I'll rip his throat out," she muttered.

"Oh Entrapta," he said, unable to resist smirking. "This was decades before you were even born. This is the first I've so much as thought of him in years."

This information did not quell her. She abandoned the scout to crawl over to him and deposit herself into his lap.

"I see," he said, stroking her hair. "Are you sitting on me as a sign of ownership?"

She shut her eyes and crossed her arms, nodding proudly. "If my butt touches it it's mine."

He laughed softly. "Then I am quite thoroughly yours. Though you do realize I'm quite old? I have a history. I've had other sexual partners."

She fidgeted. 

"I - I know. I mean. I figured. But have you had other lab partners?" 

"No," he said, putting his arms around her. "There was never time. Or anyone I wished to … share facilities with."

She nodded. "Same. I understand you've had others, and - of course you have. But I don't want to hear about it."

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and laughed uneasily. Her face flushed once more. 

"Very well," he said. 

They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the soft idling if the scout's singularity engine. 

"You said Mikal was - he was trained in sex?"

"I thought you didn't want to hear about it."

"I don't," she insisted, but he could feel an increase in her heart rate. 

"I think you do," he said. He lifted her chin to look into her eyes, to see. "I think it turns you on."

Her eyes widened in slight panic. 

"No," she said quickly.

He raised an eyebrow.

"No!" she insisted. "I mean I … I don't like it. Or him. Or … or the thought of you with him, but I'm also … curious. From a purely scientific standpoint."

"Certainly," he said, kissing her neck. "Data to be collected."

He moved his hand to her breast, slipping two talons under her shirt. Entrapta made a soft sound and pressed back against him. 

"Yeah, it's just.. um. Just about the data."

"Of course," he whispered in her ear, pressing a hard nipple with his thumb. "No ulterior motive at all. Now, to answer your very scientific question, yes, Mikal was trained in sex."

"What did he … do to you?" she asked with a hush. 

Hordak moved his other hand over her hip and eased it beneath the waist of her overalls. She'd forgotten her underthings, as she usually did. She gave a ragged gasp as his fingers slipped along her entrance. She was as slick and swollen as he'd ever felt her. Her eyes fluttered closed.

"The first thing he did," he whispered in her ear, "was lock out the observation deck."

"Alpha six eight delta secure," Mikal said suddenly into the air. There was a sharp clang from either end of the bridge.

"What - what did you just do?" Hordak asked as Mikal returned his attention to unbuttoning his formal uniform. 

"Locked the doors."

"Those doors lock?"

"Of course they lock. Prime fucks everyone up here."

"He - he does?" Hordak asked, his mind spinning. "What if Prime decides he wants to fuck someone here tonight?"

"Then he'll just have to fuck them somewhere else," Mikal said. He forced Hordak's shirt open and kissed his chest.

Hordak panted from equal parts arousal and fear. "You're insane," he said. "You're the most insane person I've ever met. We're going to get caught - you'll -" Hordak gasped as Mikal took his ears between his thumbs and forefingers, massaging them in a way he'd never felt. Hordak shut his eyes and sighed. 

"Relax, tankling," Mikal whispered, brushing his lips against Hordak's. "My poor general."

Later Hordak wished he'd asked Mikal why he chose that particular terminology, but in that moment he was overwhelmed by his skin and his scent and wine and risk. Mikal ran his hands along Hordak's torso and shoulders and back as he removed his layers of clothing,, planting long, soft kisses on the skin he exposed. He stroked his face, then suddenly took his hair in his fist and forced his tongue into Hordak's mouth. Hordak took him by the back of the neck and kissed him back aggressively. 

"Mmm," Mikal said. "Good."

Hordak described sliding the gown from Mikal's shoulders as he eased Entrapta out of her shirt, cupping her breasts and kissing the nape of her neck. She tilted her head back to kiss him, taking one of his hands from her chest and sliding it back between her legs. He nuzzled into her ear as he stroked her gently up and down. She sighed and arched slightly. Her hair began to slide around him, petting him in time with the movements of his fingers.

Mikal tipped Hordak back upon the couch and brought his thigh up between Hordak's leg. He pressed up hard against the three internal testicles there, rubbing in firm circles. The pressure was extremely pleasurable and had the unexpected effect of making his penis engorge and emerge from it's internal shaft almost immediately. Left to its own devices that process was much slower, but Mikal knew things Hordak obviously did not. He moved Hordak's tunic and smiled approvingly, running the flat of his hand against the hardness he'd summoned. Hordak sucked his breath between his teeth and clutched the back of Mikal's upper thigh, placing his other hand on Mikal's half-emerged cock. He purred and rubbed against Hordak's palm, rapidly growing until Hordak could close his hand around him. Mikal held Hordak 's hand there and thrust into it with soft moans of pleasure.

Entrapta gave a little curling cry as Hordak carefully brushed her clitoris with the lightest of pressure again and again, enjoying watching her buck and strain. He lifted her chin to kiss her cheek and neck.

"Keep going," she gasped. "Mmm. Tell me everything."

Mikal eventually stilled Hordak's hand amd fell over him, softly nipping at his belly, then down to run his tongue up his smooth curved shaft, and took it in his mouth. Hordak moaned at the softness and heat, involuntarily moving his hips in small circles. Mikal focused on the head of Hordak's cock, timing the sliding of his tongue to the motion of Hordak's hips. 

"Ah," Hordak breathed sharply, encouraging Mikal to suck him deeper. He felt the urge to come rising. 

"I'll do that if you like that, " Entrapta panted. "I can do that."

Hordak rubbed Entrapta's entrance in slow hard circles as he related this. She shuddered and bucked against his hand, spreading her legs apart, hooking her arm around the back of his neck. 

"You certainly can," Hordak said. He let the pads of his fingers rest directly on her clitoris for a moment, then rub there firmly for a few strokes, stopped, started again. She made an almost pained sound. 

"Hordak," she said through grit teeth, moving her hips rhythmically to better catch his touch. She tried to push his fingers inside her but he wouldn't allow it. He let this build a moment before continuing his story.

Hordak had thrown his head back, curling his hand in Mikal's hair, soft moans growing louder as the rhythmic sucking and slickness and heat drove him closer and closer to climax. Mikal suddenly slid Hordak out of his mouth and pressed two fingers hard into the base of Hordak's cock. Hordak gasped in pain

"That hurts," he said.

"Hush," Mikal said. He laid a series of light kisses on the tip of Hordak's cock before swirling his tongue over him. It was a delicate touch but Hordak cried out. Those two fingers had somehow sensitized him and it was too late, his talons dug into the couch and braced himself for a ripping climax. Only there wasn't one. Mikal's fingers kept Hordak from releasing any fluid, so he was simply perched there on the very edge of an orgasm.

"Oh god. Oh god," Hordak whimpered as Mikal licked the length of him and back again, his tongue like fire. Hordak panted and writhed, half out of his mind. The desire to come was so strong it was nearly painful. "Please," he gasped. "Please." 

"Show me where," Entrapta demanded, shoving her hand beneath his tunic. She found him fully erect and grasped him for a moment before Hordak moved her fingers and showed her where to press, but stopped her when she attempted it.

"Too early," he said. "It will just be painful." He moved her hand to the shaft. She groaned and rubbed him.

"I want this," she whispered up at him, her eyes wide and pleading.

Hordak smirked down at her.

She bit her lip and rocked her hips back against him. "Please?"

"That's not going to work on me, Princess," Hordak said. "Not till I say so."

"Not till I say so," Mikal had also said, brushing his lips and the tip of his tongue over Hordak in the most torturous way possible. Hordak rubbed Entrapta's clitoris in furious tight circles as he related this. She cried out in a series of happy moans but he stopped as soon as he saw her hair begin to go electric.

"Hordak!" Entrapta scolded. 

"I said not yet."

"Oh!" she heaved. "Oh you're so _mean."_

"You're killing me," Hordak gasped to Mikal.

"I haven't even begun to kill you," Mikal said with a low laugh. "I'm going to give you a trial and execution right here in front of fucking Rix, General."

Mikal sat up between Hordak's legs and stroked him fast and hard. Hordak bucked and snarled and gnashed his teeth as Mikal released his fingers for a split second, letting Hordak release only a small spurt of incredibly pleasurable fluid. Hordak gave an outraged, broken moan.

"You - fucking - demon -" Hordak hissed through grit teeth.

Mikal chuckled as he rubbed the slick fluid between Hordak's cheeks. "Trust me it's better this way," he said, "but do keep hissing at me, I like that."

Mikal took one hand from Hordak's cock and leaned over him, nuzzling and licking his ear, pushing against Hordak's entrance. He put his hand to Hordak's cock and began to stroke him again, long firm strokes, almost too firm for how sensitive he was.

"Ah," Hordak panted. "Ah, ah, ah."

"Look at you. Foaming at the mouth." Mikal purred into his ear. "Do you want me to fuck you, tankling?" he said, smirking at Hordak's helpless writhing. 

Hordak pressed three fingers against Entrapta's opening. 

"Hm?" he whispered in her ear. "Tankling?"

"Yes," Entrapta whimpered.

Mikal suddenly grabbed Hordak's hair in a vicious fist and at the same time pushed himself inside him. Hordak slid his fingers deep inside Entrapta, who arched and cried out. She leaned forward and ground furiously against the heel of his hand as Hordak told her how Mikal had kept his two fingers against him, preventing his orgasm but still viciously stroking his straining, pulsing, aching cock even as he fucked him. Hordak tore his talons into the fabric of the couch, forced onto this agonizing precipice as beautiful Mikal took his pleasure of him. It was only when Mikal's face contorted in orgasm that he finally released Hordak. He grit his teeth and with a long, torturous moan finally pumped out what felt like gallons of hot fluid out over Mikal's hand, working him until the very last drop.

Hordak pushed Entrapta further forward and forced her overalls down around her knees. The insides of her thighs dripped. He ran his hand up through her hair, grabbed it, and slid easily inside her despite her smallness, her tightness. She whimpered and pushed back against him so Hordak took her by the hips and pounded her hard, groaning softly. She moaned and locked her ankles around him letting her arms go limp so only her ass was in the air, completely undignified, like an animal in heat. She reached back with her hands and hair, rubbing herself furiously, the tips of her fingers hitting Hordak as he thrust.

She arched her back and moaned something unintelligible as she tensed around him and came, then twenty seconds later came again. Her heat and slickness and pressure and moans were too much for him. He picked her up and bounced her vertically upon him, burying his face in her hair. That did it; he sank his teeth into the back of her shoulder and exploded inside her.

Entrapta, her body flushed, her eyes wild, used her hair to turn and face him, furiously riding out the last pulses of his orgasm. She ground her hips into him and came a final time, and with it, bit him hard on his collarbone.

Hordak yelped in surprise. 

"En-Entrapta!" 

"You're mine," she growled against his skin.

Hordak laughed.

"Ah. Ah, you're adorable," he said, catching his breath."Females don't bite males in that way."

"This female does," Entrapta said. She wiped her damp hair from her face and pointed at the small bite mark. "You're mine. He can't have you."

Hordak laughed again. "He doesn't have me. He never did."

That, Hordak knew but would never reveal to Entrapta, was not entirely true. Mikal could have had him. After that he could have had anything he wanted. He could have told Hordak to throw himself out an airlock and he'd have done so without question. For months afterward he'd been aroused and bewildered and pining, not knowing what he'd done to receive such a gift, shriveling with the knowledge it would never happen again. 

"I must return to my charges," Mikal whispered, collecting his clothes. 

"Wait," Hordak said.

"I cannot stay," Mikal scolded.

"I know," Hordak said. "But if you - if you ever find yourself missing your Brothers on Rix - please - contact me. I'll - I'll find a way to you."

Mikal sighed. He stroked Hordak's head. Hordak rose into his touch like a cat, but when he looked up Mikal's expression was almost unbearably sad.

Mikal lifted Hordak's chin and softly kissed his lips.

"No, my poor tankling," he whispered, "you won't."


	7. let's go mad

"He knew," Hordak said to Entrapta. "Somehow. He must have known."

They had moved to the seating area before the pedestal. Hordak leaned against the armrest with his arms around Entrapta, who lay facing him with her head on his shoulder. He slowly scratched her scalp. The blanket from the scout's survival kit was draped over them. 

"He knew what?"

"That I am … defective. It had already begun at that point but there were no outward signs, or so I thought. But I am not trained the way Companions are. Their job is to see. To report."

"You think he told Prime?"

"Of course he did. I would have."

"But then why did Prime wait until the defect was obvious before discarding you?"

"That I do not know. There could be many reasons. There were many ongoing conflicts which I was still directing. I managed perfectly well in the beginning, there was no cause to upend the chain of command before he had to. I suppose." Hordak shook his head. "But I couldn't hide it indefinitely. One day I had a seizure in front of Prime and my brothers, and that was the end. He sent me to fight on the front lines with a crew of Hordox."

"Hordox?"

"Ground soldiers. Nine and a half feet tall, hugely increased muscle mass and aggression. Six arms. Assholes," he muttered under his breath.

"They are assholes or they have enhanced assholes?"

Hordak frowned. "How would you enhance an asshole?"

"Me personally? I mean for starters - "

"I meant that I do not care for them, Entrapta, not that they have any sort of ... special engineering in that area. When Prime sent me to the front lines he assigned me to a Hordox ship. They were no more pleased to have me there than I was to be there."

The six-armed giants stared Hordak down as he boarded the deployment cruiser. The cruiser's official name was Demonfall, it's unofficial name was the The Shitbird. Hordak would be aboard The Shitbird for three weeks en route to Tringa 7, a planet of great tactical importance which had just been retaken by the Hrat, the giant six-armed troll-like species the Hordox had been created to fight. 

"If the Hrat had six arms why not give the Hordox seven?" Entrapa interrupted.

"Where would Prime put the seventh arm?"

She considered this. "You make a good point. Continue."

The Hordox certainly had a running joke about their "seventh arm," and it was one of the only jokes on The Shirtbird that weren't at Hordak's expense. Those jokes had started immediately.

A sextuple-armed armed behemoth loomed threateningly over Hordak's bunk - good god, the indignity of a bunk, after decades with a private room, a private bed. Hordak set his bag down and looked up at his visitor.

"Can I help you?' he hissed.

"Can I help you, sir," the Hordox corrected him.

Hordak bristled at his insubordination - how dare a mere Hordox speak to a general so - before he remembered the Hordox did in fact now outrank him.

"Can I help you SIR," Hordak said with all the venom he could muster.

The Hordox pushed Hordak in the shoulder with one huge hand of six. He barely touched him but it was enough to make Hordak stumble back.

"Flagship prick," the Hordox said. "The fuck are you doing here? Huh? We had to drop a good soldier from our team to bunk a Flaggy, and why? Your skinny ass will last about forty five seconds on Tringa. Private!" he called over his shoulder. "How long you give this Flaggy in the swamps? I give him forty five seconds."

Another Hordox huffed over and sized Hordak up. "Two minutes. He looks fast. Could probably outrun a couple Hrat before one pops him like a grape."

"Two minutes? Generous, bro, real generous. Look at him. He looks like he's been through a fuckin' famine."

"Heartbreaking. I feel like I should pass a collection plate around for his cause." 

"I wanna know why the fuck Command sent us a starving Hordak," another Hordox said. "What'd you do? Huh? What'd you fuck up?"

"You didn't hear about this guy? Former Top General," said a third Hordox. "Prime put in the transfer himself."

"Well shit! What's wrong Flaggie, did you not suck Prime's dick hard enough?"

"Cloning defect. He's too skinny and weak to suck Prime's dick now."

"True, Prime's dick would damage this guy. Hell, my dick would damage this guy. You hear that, Flaggie? You gotta have some meat on you to take this dick. Hey, anybody wanna give this sickly Hordak their extra ration bars?" The Hordox banged loudly on the wall with his fist. "Brothers, we're doing a food drive for the Hordak! We gotta help him, he looks like a dried mushroom!"

Hordak quietly endured this for three weeks and only occasionally considered putting a bolt rifle to his head. The Hordox were more than happy to use a former general as an errand boy and punching bag. This was the object of his punishment, after all. When death was handed down for a clone in Command it was always done the same way: they were sent on their first and final trip to the front lines to be bullied and emasculated by those they used to command, before finally dying in battle. It was either that or being beaten to death by juvenile Hordaks after months of starvation, but that was reserved for fratricide or treason. Hordak had merely lied.

"What did you lie about?"

"It was a lie of omission," Hordak said. "Prime didn't discard me for my defect. Not directly, anyway. He discarded me for keeping it from him."

"That seems kind of harsh."

Hordak lowered his gaze. "Prime must have absolute trust in the members of his inner circle. I was wrong to hide it."

"Would he have killed you anyway if you came clean?"

"Yes."

"Well then what -!?" Entrapta asked, making a sharp gesture. "What choice did you have!? That's so unfair!"

"The choice I had was between being painlessly euthanized and dying with full Imperial honors, or being disemboweled in a swamp by giants," Hordak said. "I delayed telling Prime too long, and the defect chose for me."

The Hordox put together a betting pool as to how long their "little mascot" would survive in combat. The kindest estimate was an hour and a half, and from what Hordak knew of the swampy battlegrounds of Tringa it was very kind indeed.

"How long did you end up lasting on Tringa?" Entrapta asked.

"About twenty minutes," he said.

Oh Hordak," Entrapta said. "I'm so sorry to hear you died."

Hordak smirked. "That was how long it took me to lose the Hordox in the melee, backtrack, and take command of the the Demonfall."

A wide, delighted smile crossed her face. "You stole the ship?"

"I was Top General," he said. "I took command."

As soon as Hordak's feet touched the surface of Tringa something in him boiled over. It made no sense, none of this made any sense. Hordak was not going to die in some fetid swamp surrounded by troglodyte Hordox. He was going to be peacefully retired when he was finally too old to serve at Prime's side. The Emperor himself would give the injection which would usher Hordak into the next plane. His body would be placed in a funerary pod and launched into a star after a ceremony with full Horde regalia. That was how Top Generals were sent off. They were not sent to the front lines to be torn apart by Hrat.

This was a test, Hordak decided as soon as the thick swamp air hit him. It was a test of his worthiness. He needed to do something outrageously brave and devastatingly successful, and he needed to do it now. And, as he watched a Hrat leap upon on a Hordox's back and twist his head off his neck, there was no way he could do it on the ground.

It was not difficult to lose the Hordox in the swamps, running fast, bolt rifle to his shoulder. He returned to the Demonfall.

"What the hell are you doing back here?" the Hordox navigator demanded when Hordak entered the cockpit.

"Set course for the Hrat command center, Navigator," Hordak commanded. "Ready the ordinance. We are bringing the fight to them."

"Excuse the fuck did you just say to me?" the navigator asked.

Hordak glared at him. "Your commanding officer just gave you an order."

The navigator sneered. "Have you lost your mind, you Flaggie cunt?"

Hordak knew now that the answer was yes. But in that moment he answered the Hordox's question with another question. 

"Do you know the punishment for gross insubordination, soldier?"

"Yes, turd boy, it's-"

Hordak raised his bolt rifle to the Hordox's chest and fired. It made a dripping cavern of his torso and took out most of the pilot's seat and bulkhead behind it, but Hordak did not have time to worry about a mess. He had a conflict to win for Prime.

"I was almost out of the atmosphere when they shot me down. I had destroyed most of the ship's sensors when I executed the navigator. I knew full well that was where they were housed but I just...kept going." Hordak shook his head. "I cannot explain it. Everything had turned to gold. I felt as a god, bereft of doubt, flying back to Prime on victory's very wings, right until the moment a Hrat missile took out the port engine. I crashed in a marsh, got out of the ship, and then I was...here."

Entrapta frowned. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"You really have no idea what happened?"

He shook his head. "None whatsoever. Perhaps Tringa has a connection to Etheria somehow. Or perhaps my break wuth reality was so intense it summoned a literal _break in reality._. Or … or I'm still there, I've been decapitated by a Hrat, and this is all an elaborate hallucination in the milliseconds before death." Hordak sighed. "In some ways it makes more sense that this is all a dream."

"A good dream?"

"If I woke up now? Yes. A nightmare turned worthwhile at the end." He touched his face to her hair. "But I would feel your absence."

"Pfff. You'd forget all about me by lunch, you know how dreams are."

"Not possible."

She giggled and ran her hands along his sides, petting him like a big beast. He smiled and carded his fingers through her hair. It was always so cool and heavy and smooth, and self organized so meticulously, never a tangle to speak of.

She idly reached out and tapped at a console, summoning blue First Ones glyphs. She shifted in his arms to better read them. 

"Oh, look at that," she said. "These are logs of some kind, for the domicile controls. There's profiles - profiles of the former residents! Wow! Looks like … two women. It says they designed and … grew the chamber." Entrapta blinked. "Grew it?"

"Quite common in crystalline architecture. You program your building into the root crystal then stimulate it. This place was probably grown in a matter of days."

"Wow," Entrapta said breathily. "Imagine that. Just pick a spot and stimulate yourself up a new Sanctum."

"Two women, one bed, sounds like that's exactly what they were doing." 

"Mara and the Dryl Princess?" Entrapta asked.

"Seems so."

"How _romantic!_" Entrapta sang with a grin, beaming up at the chamber. "Makes sense, this place was really made for love, wasn't it? The big bed, the big tub. Aww! It's like the Sanctum! We're in my great great great great great great grandma's Sanctum!"__

_ _"Indeed, and she was wise. I'll be installing a bathtub first thing when we get home."_ _

_ _"Ooh! Ooh a big one. With lights!"_ _

_ _"Lights?" _ _

_ _"Yes, under the water, lights that change color with music!"_ _

_ _Hordak made a face. "I'm not sure a disco bathtub fits the Horde aesthetic. "_ _

_ _Entrapta pouted. "No lights? Then jets! And massagers! Oh Hordak, we could design the fanciest therapeutic bathtub! You'll feel so much better!"_ _

_ _"Yes," Hordak murmured. "Yes, it will require much planning. I intend to live in it."_ _

_ _"You can run the Horde from a bathtub no problem," Entrapta chirped._ _

_ _Hordak smirked and gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "Delegate, delegate. I'm busy. I'm in the bath with Entrapta, that's far more pressing. I'll finally run the Empire like a proper king."_ _

_ _She wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her chin to his collarbone, grinning up at him like the thought of it utterly delighted her. It was like air, that look. He could live forever on that look._ _

_ _"On second thought keep the lights!" he declared. "I shall embrace my descent into a mad ruler. All the best kings go mad."_ _

_ _"That sounds fun," Entrapta said, kissing him. "Let's go mad."_ _

_ _Hordak gave a grunt of consent and kissed her neck, squeezed her bottom. Entrapta grinned and kept tapping at the console. _ _

_ _"Mara and the Dryl Princess," Hordak mused, kissing her shoulder. "Females greatly outnumber males on Etheria. I suppose it's no surprise so many of you turn to one another. Especially given the quality of the males," he muttered. "I can't imagine one keeping you satisfied."_ _

_ _"I always thought Etheria had a pronounced lack of seven foot two cyborgs."_ _

_ _"Ironic, considering how ubiquitous they are in the greater universe. I imagine many worlds might be…" he voice faded for a moment with the realization of the heresy he was about to utter. He said it anyway. "Many worlds would be grateful for a lack of seven foot two cyborgs."_ _

_ _"Hey," Entrapta said, turning to him. "Do clones have girlfriends and boyfriends?"_ _

_ _Hordak blinked, thrown by the question. "I … there are … dalliances outside the Brotherhood, certainly. But they do not go father than that. Prime did not create us to marry and leave the Horde. We cannot reproduce unless Prime himself alters us, and to my knowledge that's only been done with a handful of Companions. I suppose one might visit a loved one on shore leave, but we only leave Prime's service upon death."_ _

_ _"Oh." Entrapta frowned. "So even if a clone meets someone they love, they can't be with them. That's so sad."_ _

_ _"It's-" Hordak paused. His brow furrowed. He intended to say _ it's the way it is_ or _ that's how it's always been_, but the words stopped at his throat. He'd never truly thought about it before. How many of his brothers had met an Entrapta of their own only to be forced to leave her? To silently grieve alone, as he had?_ _

_ _"Yes," he said slowly. "It is sad."_ _

_ _Entrapta gasped. "Hordak!" she said, pointing frantically at the console. "It says it! It says right here what the machine does!"_ _

_ _Hordak sat up. "What?"_ _

_ _"A chamber that houses a machine to hide -or, to obscure - or to - to move a …." Her voice drifted off. Her eyes widened. _ _

_ _"Entrapta what does it say?"_ _

_ _"...to move a planet."_ _

_ _****_ _

_ _

_ _"Hordak I have to go back in," Entrapta said, hovering by the pedestal. "I need to talk to her."_ _

_ _"You don't, " Hordak insisted. "You're not strong enough yet. We can figure this out without her."_ _

_ _"How? She won't let me access anything having to do with the machine's actual operation. I can't even see the user manual! If there even is one!" She gave a frustrated sigh. "The only thing I know of that can move a planet is gravity. What if the machine can control gravity!? Hordak I need to know!"_ _

_ _Hordak frowned. _ _

_ _She crossed her arms. "Hordak."_ _

_ _He shook his head. "She has made her ill intent towards you quite plain. We should not pursue this further until we know of a way to … to neutralize her, should she attempt to harm you."_ _

_ _"We neutralize her by closing the panel."_ _

_ _"Entrapta, she is in control of a machine that is almost certainly very powerful. And dangerous."_ _

_ _"Since when are you afraid of power OR danger?"_ _

_ _Hordak bristled. "I am not afraid. There is such a thing as a calculated risk. And the calculations don't produce a net positive when dealing with a sentient crystal that both potentially controls a superweapon and wants to kill you." _ _

_ _"Okay, well what I'M calculating is that this is inevitable. We can't just spend all our time screwing around while there's a machine that can move planets just _sitting here._"_ _

_ _"I think we can," he huffed. _ _

_ _"And what will we do when there Horde gets here? Show them how good you've gotten at doing that thing with your tongue?"_ _

_ _Hordak flinched. He wasn't used to Entrapta being so crude. She was also right. He'd allowed himself to forget that this bliss and solitude would not last forever._ _

_ _She sighed. Her shoulders drooped. She got into his lap and kissed his cheek. _ _

_ _"I'm sorry," she said, perhaps thinking she'd hurt his feelings. However she did not look any less determined. _ _

_ _He sighed. "But?"_ _

_ _"But you can't stop me."_ _

_ _Hordak grumbled. She kissed him again. Nuzzled his ear._ _

_ _"For the record, you should show them that thing you do with your tongue," she whispered. "You_ are_ very good at it."_ _

_ _He slid his hand up her thigh. "I could show you right now if you wish," he said, and made to kiss her neck._ _

_ _She smiled and held two fingers to his chin, stopping him. "Nice try. Come on. Let's get to work."_ _

_ _***_ _

_ _He wanted so badly to return to the fiction that this was a permanent heaven. That this was his life now, that it was more than a thin membrane of time that kept Prime's forces from bearing down upon them. He wanted to believe it so badly that it pained him to watch Entrapta risk herself this way. _ _

_ _She sat on her knees before the pedestal, breathing deeply, bracing herself. She was afraid. She tried to cover it, or perhaps she did not know it, but he could see the fear in her eyes. _ _

_ _"It's gonna be fine," she said to herself, nervously rubbing her hands along her thighs. _ _

_ _"If anything goes even slightly sideways I am slamming the panel shut. I don't care if she's giving you the formulas for time travel, if she so much as lays a finger on you-"_ _

_ _"She doesn't have fingers. I mean. Except the ones that reach into your brain." She took a deep breath, hunched her shoulders up, held that for a long moment, then released it. "Okay open it."_ _

_ _Hordak grimaced and pressed the panel open. _ _

_ _Entrapta waved, grinning nervously. She opened her mouth to greet the machine but produced no sound. She gasped a bit. Her shoulders went slack. Hordak watched her intently, hawklike, taking note of her every breath and twitch, his hands a hair trigger on the panel. _ _

_ _Her lips moved. Her lower lip quivered. Her eyes filled with tears._ _

_ _"Oh," she said. _ _

_ _ She slid off one of her gloves._ _

_ _"Entrapta?"_ _

_ _"You can," she whispered. "It's okay."_ _

_ _Quick as a lizard Entrapta's hand shot into the guts of the machine and grasped a glowing purple rod._ _

_ _"Entrapta!" Hordak shouted._ _

_ _It were as though the light left her body. Her head hung. Her hair unraveled out of its ponytails and fell limp around her, obscuring her face. Her breaths came deep and long. She grasped the wrist holding the rod then ran her hand along her arm as though taking account of every muscle, every centimeter of skin._ _

_ _"Whole," Entrapta whispered, pressing the heel of her hand into her shoulder, squeezing the flesh there._ _

_ _"Entrapta?" Hordak hissed, his heart pounding._ _

_ _She slowly turned to him. She glared up at him from between two columns of hair with eyes that glowed solid purple._ _

_"Whole."_


End file.
